baseball-centric aside

September 26, 2011 | Posted in notes, Sports | | 116 Comments ↓

See, here’s an example of a low-content post that can serve also as an open thread for Phrog & Sphinxter to talk about them Yankees and them Angels and so on. I can even decorate it with an image:

116 comments on “baseball-centric aside”

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  1. Okay. Here I am in Aside world. Continuing from the point when the Phrog explained that he did watch the Yankee-Boston game until like the 14th inning last night. To include CK in the baseball talk, it will probably be Boston against Detroit in the playoffs. Going with my perspective on pitchers in the playoffs, Verlander should be more dominant then even than he was in the regular season. We’ll see.

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  2. We thank you for your cooperation.

    You can consider me by default rooting for the Tigers, but quickly losing interest anyway, said interest potentially to be revived if V is pitching in a decisive game, especially if it’s against someone one of you is rooting for or if you’ve come over to his side and in either case can explain to me what it is I would especially be appreciating if I had been paying close or really any attention.

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  5. Red Sox lose again and now are tied with the Rays.The Red Sox can now not beat the Rays who are going to play against a patchwork Yankee line-up. If the Yankees are careful they can make it likely that the Rays and Sox will end the season tied and will have to play a tie-breaker game in what would have been the single off-day prior to the statrt of the play-offs

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    • It’s really amazing that a team as stacked with 3 MVP candidates could collapse like they have. You see, CK? Baseball is the most amazing game of all! It connects to failure better than any other sport and is therefore the most artful, the most yogic, and the most connected to real love! Nothing like it.

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  7. after trailing 2-0, the Yankees score 3.
    then, in imminent danger of blowing open the game, having bases loaded and nobody out, Girardi signals to Martin to hit into a triple play

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  8. Yup, Girardi had them totally psyched with that one and just as I’m celebrating him being way ahead of the field….he goes predictable. When he gets to the spot where he needs a pitcher to give up the big game-losing home run to Tampa, he brings in ex-Ray (notice I didn’t say radiograph here) Rafael Soriano.

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  9. The wild-card situation doesn’t give me much to go on as far as getting CK interested. I think I better become a Tigers fan just so I can figure out why CK should care past the point that he does for the reasons he does. That doesn’t cut it. So I’ll work on it. First, I have to figure out how to be a Tiger fan myself. Verlannder is so not Lincecum. Maybe he’s like a vegan or something. That was the problem with Lincecum. The main glitch was and is his diet. He loves hamburgers. Anyway, I’ve always liked Jim Leyland, the Tigers coach. I think I remember that he’s a big Hegel lover.

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  10. After Teixeira tried to ruin everything with a grand slam and more, and the Rays responded by producing zero runs on one single, the Yankees were reduced to having, in the 8th inning, to alternate walking Rays with hitting them with pitched balls until Longoria managed to hit a meatball served up by the ninth pitcher brought in to what was a shutout.

    the rays were gifted with 6 runs and enter the ninth trailing by one.

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  11. wow, that was close. Wade waited until the Rays were down to their last strike before allowing the home run that he was tasked with giving up….. now it’s up to the ever-reliable Scott Proctor to find a way to lose this.

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    • If I heard you correctly, and have been following the news correctly, they spent the last two days of the season inventing new and almost unheard of ways to boot away games. Very impressive! They have the entire universe right where they want it. You should be as proud as a fan can be, and I’m sure that your own vibrationalized astonishments played a perhaps small but still essential role in the whole schmier.

      L’shanah tovah!.

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  13. Thanks for that. You too.

    We did all we could to lose these games and when it looked like the Red Sox had it sewn up, we managed, against great odds, to avoid scoring with first-and-third, no outs, by getting the runner picked off third ….on a ground ball…..very difficult play to pull off .

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  14. If CK can’t get into this baseball weirdness just on its own merit, there’s no hope. Looks like he is. He should. OMG! The most painful sports experiences I’ve known. You kind of have to feel for Boston don’t you? Phrog? No? It was everywhere. You’d think the Angels at least could just slip into that good night, but no. Napoli hits 4 dingers in the last 2 days just to grind them into the ground. On a last note about the RIchards kid, Phrog, he did get a last good game in. He pitched 5 really good innings, lowering his ERA from 8 to 5, so that was good at least. Oh, and CK! We’re now immediately at odds with the Phrog, because the Rangers managed to get the wild-card. It’s Verlander against CC in the first game. Everything we’ve been talking about in respect to pitching and post season success on the table.

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  15. Note for CK: Napoli played for the Angels. He was Scioscia’s boy for a year but then Scioscia somehow lost connection with him. Angels kept another catcher who sucks beyond all measure, and got Vernon Wells for Napoli. Toronto traded Nap to the Rangers so he can be one of baseballs best hitting catchers (maybe all-time kind of stuff) for how many years in the future? Painful. Even George is crying for the Angels.

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  16. I was upset that the Sox didn’t manage to end up tied with Tampa and if it was any reliever other than Papelbon having the game one strike from over and then giving up three hits to lose I would have felt much more sympathy for Boston. I admire most of their players, but Pap always has grated on me (almost as much as Francisco Rodriguez used to).

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  18. I’m sad that I won’t be able to watch the Yanks-Det game live. If I tape it, I’ll have to do not do any Internet until tomorrow. We’ll see how it plays out. Anyway, Phrog, even though CK and I are pulling for the Tigers, I know we both want you and your family to be happy, so if the Yanks win, I think I speak for both of us when I convey to you that a Yanks ultimate victory will be fine by us. But in the meantime, we’ll be annoying. Sorry.

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  21. When I said, “Yanquis, stay home!” I didn’t mean, “Stay home an extra day.” Or however they work it out.

    Heavy rain-outs are bad enough… Have they had to play any Serious games in snowshoes yet?

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  23. More strangeness. I get home, and run through my game tapes real quick. Guess what I discover? Verlander doesn’t even get to pitch the opener really! Naturally. How could it be otherwise with both CK and I rooting for the Tigers. Double cursed as the two of us are, the Tigers had no hope. Sorry to be a downer, CK, just as you were trying to get into it. We should be Yankee fans. We’re not powerful enough to fuck them up with our fanhood. Too many other curses running in all directions.

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  24. Thanks, but the phrog has already been gifted far beyond that which he merits.

    he has predicted,,,,,Yankees, Rays, Brewers Phillies

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  25. Then the Yankees play the Rays and the Brewers play the Phillies or Gore is right and anthropogenic global raining will then end outdoor baseball as we know it.

    (too soon for further predictions)

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  26. another victim of AGR as a pitch bounces in front of the plate and takes a wicked skid on the wet clay and goes under the catchers arm and slugs the ump in the jaw.

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  27. rather rare that a batted ball hits the top of the wall and comes back into play. that’s what happened on Cano’s last at-bat.

    this one just ending with the ball going quite a bit further for a grand slam that effectively ended this game in the 6th inning as the Yankees now lead 8-1. the Detroit run was scored yesterday and Nova is going to be the winning pitcher tonight.so far, he’s gone four inning and given up two hits,

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    • Once the Rangers get going they usually don’t stop for awhile. I’d say Rangers against the Tigers is still a possibility if CK and I stop rooting for the Tigers. I like your sci-fi Gore prediction though. That was good.

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      • After the Tigers used their two best starters and they combined for one loss, I think that the odds for Detroit winning are not too good. Verlander was very ordinary in his 25 pitch cameo, facing 6 batters to get 3 outs and Fister got an olde-fashioned asswhipping,

        The Yankees are set up to use the entirety of a well-rested bullpen tomorrow after Nova took the game into the 9th.

        As someone noted, the Tigers have the hottest pitcher and the hottest closer going into the series and the Yankees have everything else.
        Well, the hot pitcher is only going to be able to get one more start and the closer ain’t going to matter if the Yankees offense gives them leads going into the ninth.

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  29. Hold on. Baseball is baseball and I’ll probably jinx Shersher, the Yankees 3rd pitcher with this, but through five…wait for it…yes…a no-no! He blanked the Yanks for 8 the last time he threw against them, so he’s thrown 13 straight scoreless innings.

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  30. Again, it’s bad luck, but this goes to why CK should recognize how great baseball is. The Phrog was right about the Yankees being in a great position for the reasons stated. Six innings later, it’s reversed. Tigers up 4 and if they can hold on, they have the best pitcher in baseball going at home in game 3. Wow.

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  32. I would say it was unbelievable but you can’t say that about baseball, especially this year. When Avila slipped on the Yankee logo in the rain, you knew it was going to happen. I actually started writing this before Cano even came up. I felt bad for the Tigers to the point of not wanting to watch. So I started typing this before Cano’s 3 run ho…
    Opp…hold everything…a lazy ground ball and the second basemen actually makes the play. Wow.

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  34. They do look nervous. But who wouldn’t be in that park? It’s a scary place. The Tigers better get their wins at home because I can’t see them winning in series finale in New York no matter who’s pitching. That kid Shersher, however it’s spelled, deserves a tremendous amount of credit.

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      • That’s perfect. Maybe baseball players’ names in general are somehow more perfect in that way than other athletes? Wouldn’t surprise me. Could be a reason for your fanhood. And maybe we should pitch the idea to Danielle: Retired agoraphobic detective solves crimes through a strange form of divination involving linguistic name associations.

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  37. I’ve been reading a bit about the Tiger’s closure, Valverde. He hadn’t blown a save all year. Didn’t know that. As a showman, he’s part Papilbomb, part K-Rod, part…what was that guy’s name? Oh, yea, John Rocker. Valverde’s such a nut in a drinker instead of a steroider way that I like him. I think he should be CK’s favorite player. What does Valverde mean? Papa Grande? No, that’s his nickname.

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    • “Valverde” is an old Spanish name, older than modern Spanish, name of a place in Spain. Means, or probably once meant, “green valley.”

      But I’m not into BB enough to have a favorite player. I could conceivably have a favorite idea of player, but I’m skeptical that V V would get me anywhere.

      Used to enjoy going to the games when I was a kid. It was partly because we could afford them. As far as actual participation, I had much better moments (relative to my deeply nerdy baseline) in football and basketball than ever in baseball. Could also help explain why I shed my fan interest more easily. The most fun I ever had in baseball was playing the old Sports Illustrated games with my friends, or reading about baseball history. The key betrayals of baseball history in the game since the ’70s – DH especially, and the whole steroid debacle – hurt my remnant interest, and the decline of the Dodgers obviously didn’t help.

      Just can’t sit through a game unless I’m doing at least two other things at the same time, and it doesn’t hold my attention unless it’s a moment of “high drama.”

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    • I’m not sure that any recent player compares to Rocker. I can’t remember any other guy being driven out of the game for being a racist.

      Torii Hunter gets a foot in that swamp but ain’t as stupid and as overt and is eating quite a few bags of chips (and salsa?) coutesy of Mr Moreno

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      • I retract the Rocker comparison. You’re right, no one compares to him. He just came to mind because he was always saying things and then claiming he was kidding, which is what Valverde did after the game, but Rocker definitely stepped over the line way way further.

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        • Oh, and the Tori Hunter thing is interesting. I have heard journalists who I really respect say he is without a doubt the most friendly, most caring, most generous player they deal with. Plus, as you know, I’m loathe to characterize people who have spent their lives dealing with racism as racists–though I know history could use against me there in degrees. Maybe I’m just loathe to characterize African Americans who have spent their lives dealing with racism as racists. Anyway, his statements were borderline stuff if I recall correctly. That having been said, there is something just a bit off about Tori. I’ve never been able to figure it out, even though I have been trying to for a few years. What’s his name mean, CK? Oh, wait, it’s kind of obvious. Nevermind.

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          • I like the way he plays the game and don’t much worry about that plaint about how cheap (as if ) foreign labor from the Caribbean basin is just ruining everything.

            That stupid shit is all over NYC (and the republican Party and this stupid planet), where there’s endless hostility expressed between American-born black folks and Hispanics (born here or not) and is just more of the same old. No matter how bad you’ve got it, you still want the comfort of knowing you’re better than some bunch of “them”.

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  38. Trading Mike Napoli might not have been the best idea that the Angels ever had. Good thing that they were able to get Vernon Wells’ contract in exchange.

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  41. Baseball is pain but there’s so much to go around you can always find a way to deflect it somewhere. Take note how the Phrog went back to the Napoli trade tonight. That was smart. Unfortunately, it won’t keep AJ Burnetts from bringing the pain back home tomorrow.

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  42. It seems that I’ve been watching Napoli hit the ball out of the park for most of the year.

    Watched him do it quite a bit when he was still Angelic and facing the Yanks.

    I’ve watched Burnett quite a bit now and have no idea what he might do at any time. All I have figured out is that he’s got a great curveball and a usually good and sometimes excellent fastball and a head full of weird.

    All I can say is that whoever wins the game tomorrow is in good shape and Porcello doesn’t impress me much either.

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  43. I know nothing about Porcello. I agree that anything could happen with Burnett. Should be interesting. Not just because they won, but just watching them yesterday, Tigers feel totally different at home–the opposite of scared.

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  45. I think of Wells I think of great off-speed stuff thrown by an intelligent, fearless pitcher who was drunk and stoned till dawn four nights out of five during the season and five for five otherwise.

    Valverde like that?

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  46. Back to deflecting at the Angels.

    Why didn’t they sign Beltre this off-season after he came asking them to do so?

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    • I think Scioscia’s continued connections to Dodger insiders like Lazorda worked against Beltre. My sense was that Beltre left LA under a cloud of steroid suspectness and probably other stuff. But it was a mistake. Beltre cannot only hit, he can play third the way no Angel has played third since Paul Schaull. Oh, well. There was also rumors of Young coming here. That would have been incredible. Naturally, the Rangers were loathe to let the Angels get their mitts on him, but, man, can you imagine if we got Young and kept Napoli? The turn around of that is mind-boggling.
      I was wondering how you felt about Wells. Yankee fans ended up being kind of mixed on him by the end. I always liked it theatrics like wearing a vintage Babe Ruth hate until Torre made him remove it. That was what I was thinking about in respect to Valverde. That and the weight thing. Wells was skinny when he was a reliever, though.

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  47. I like Wells as a fielder and he seems like a good guy, but in all his years in Toronto he never struck me as a batter to be feared.

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  49. yes. he did enough by bringing in a run after falling into an 0-2 count.

    and it’s a good thing for the Tigers that they decided to get rid of Granderson. they really were right about him not having much range as a centerfielder and are much better off with Austin Jackson in center

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  51. I’m still wondering where the Angels are gonna get that one big hitter.

    I would guess (if Kendrick is healthy and Trumbo can only play first base, that they’re looking for a 3B who bats lefty.

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    • Actually read the article in the local fishwrap reviewing the Angels’ season, and, looking at their lineup, and comparing it statistically to the big boy teams, it was hard see how they even competed.

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      • Great starting pitching. If Morales (broken leg) comes back and is productive, he’ll become the designated left handed hitter unless Trumbo can play 3rd. I think he could. He’s actually very agile and has a good arm. Catcher is a real issue. It seems incredible that Mathis was Scioscia’s choice over the Italian Napoli but baseball is strange. Maybe there’s something waiting to unleash inside Mathis? I recommend a trade.

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        • The Angels don’t need a catcher to hit much. Hitting is last thing to look for in a catcher because catcher and SS are the two key defenders and because a catchers offense is never reliable due to the endless small injuries and the fatigue of the position.

          Actually, Scott’s got it right IF Trumbo can play third and if Morales is ever gonna be able to field and be a big-time hitter after that bone graft on his left (plant foot) ankle.

          All their big hitters are righties and they need the DH slot or they can’t play Trout and Bourjos and the two high-priced OFers.

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          • Now back to the Yankees. I have to admit that I was okay with them winning last night. There’s just something not that appealing about the Tigers. They remind me of a softball team in a beer league. That could be their appeal if I let it be appealing, but I just can’t manage to go there naturally.

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  52. Also, about the best of 5 thing. It would make so much more sense to have the first series be best of 7 and the World Series be best of 5. Bad teams can get lucky. Any team could get lucky enough to win 3 out of 5 against any other team. So to prevent a really great team from getting beat early, the first series should be best of 7 and sense both teams are good if they’ve made it that far and make things more intense the WS should be best of 5.

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    • The best way to prevent a really great team from being beaten would be if they never played at all.

      However, I agree that the DS introduce additional sets of semi-random outcomes in an already too-random/chaotic/irregular game. But no one wants to watch two more less-meaningful games, while losing two more of the games that a somewhat larger circle of people do find interesting.

      Instead of team/talent parity, baseball depends on its own inherent randomness for an appearance of competitiveness. It’s closer to an endless series of coin flips than other pro sports already. Much more than in football or basketball, the fan of a horrible team knows that there’s a decent chance in baseball that his horrible team on any given day might end up beating the good team. The addtional playoff series introduce additional coin flips…

      But the problem is the weird irregularity/semi-randomness/marginal probability factors inherent in baseball against any attempt to fit them into a system of theoretical justice.

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    • The rules are the game. Whatever team wins a championship under a set of rules is the best team under those rules. There is no “best team”. Certainly not in baseball. Unbalanced schedule, different parks are different dimensions (could you imagine if each basketball team could set the dimensions of its home court, maybe the hoop height?), DH/-DH, All Star Game determining WS home field advantage….

      Somewhere in my noggin is the remembered assertion by some announcer in some sport during some playoffs that the winner of the 5 game series within a 7 ame series is almost always the winner of the series. It might as well be true even if it isn’t.

      Why shouldn’t bad teams be able to get lucky and win. What does getting lucky mean here. In sports the cliche is that one makes one’s own luck.

      I’m not saying I disagree with your format. Maybe each round should decrease by 2 games, with the final determined by 1 game. The number of games in the first round determined by the number of rounds needed.

      I mean apart form all that is that producing revenue will always trump determining the best team.

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  53. bob: The rules are the game.

    not always. In 1950,the Japanese Anarchist Federation had split-squad playoffs between the anarcho-communists and the anarcho-syndicalists that might well have been resolved by one squad or he other claiming the Black Flag had not the Federation dissolved in 1988.

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    • Not having enough info on the particulars, it’s hard to refute. Did they have any rules. I mean the presence of the Black Flag implies someone claiming it, and there’s a crypto rule right there. Then there’s the possibility of no rules being the rule like in a death match thing where the ref says “The only rule is that ther are no rules.” which still defines the match. I mean discussing this could recapitualte either Hegelalism or Buddhism equally depending are one’s proclivities.

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  55. Interesting that there’s been all this talk about statistics and no one has mentioned Moneyball. I didn’t realize how much I had already decided the movie couldn’t be any good until a friend brought it up at lunch. He had seen it and liked it. By the time I was done criticizing it I think he realized he didn’t really like it. The friend is a writer so it was easy to ask him things like “how did a Hollywood movie–a thing that must move from supposed heartlessness to supposed heart filled realization–get past the fact that Brad Pitt’s character starts out with heart and love for the game but gives into an idea that took heart and love of the game out of the equation. Answer: B story. It’s about his daughter. I was, however, interested to hear that the movie does address how Beane’s failure as an athlete may have been the reason he was okay with a feelingless managerial approach.

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  56. Josh Hamilton told Lyle Spencer of MLB.com that the Rangers might want to acquire another Angel this offseason. Texas successfully added Vladimir Guerrero before the 2010 season and Mike Napoli last offseason, so Hamilton’s hoping for more (Twitter link). “I think we’re going to look at who we can get from the Angels next year,” he said.

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    • Maybe they should try a pitcher this time. I know you don’t think much of Pinero but the Angels will probably let him go and I think he might make a comeback. It’s also not like the Angels really believe in Santana either and he’s a strange one. Wouldn’t surprise me if the Angels let him go to Texas somehow so he could become a 20 game winner.

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      • Are the Angels still trying to make that trade with Texas that Reagins was working on before the trade deadline in July?

        the Michael Young/ Julio Borbon/Tanner Scheppers for Weaver ?

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  57. If the Yankees are gonna win this game, that was our break( Benoit’s whiff on Cano’s tap back to the pitcher) and this is the time

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