This was supposed to be a banner year for the Seattle Mariners. The division they play in, the American League West, appeared to be watered down, as the defending champ Los Angeles Angels had heavy free agent losses in pitcher John Lackey, slugger Vladimir Guerrerro and infielder Chone Figgins, and Oakland and Texas figuring to be their usual disappointments. Meanwhile, The Mariners loaded up on talent, grabbing ace Cliff Lee to go with their young star pitcher Felix Hernandez and rejuvenated Eric Bedard to form a solid top three starting rotation. They also added Figgins and Milton Bradley to their offense, which already had perennial all-star Ichiro Suzuki. Unfortunately, the season has been a disaster so far, as Bradley has made his way to the team’s suspended list with his usual personal issues, Ryan Garko and Eric Byrnes became major disappointments, Ken Griffey Jr. had his infamous “asleep in the clubhouse” incident that probably led to his retirement, and Lee wound up hurt to start the season. While the Rangers got off to a good start to move to the top of the division and the Angels began to come together and look like their “rebuilding” project won’t be a long one, the Mariners sank to the bottom of the division, and now it appears they will throw in the towel and trade Lee to a contender. It’s a sad situation, especially after the team showed a lot of promise in 2009, even before they made all the additions. There must be something to this “team chemistry” thing.
Archive for the ‘Baseball’ Category
The Evolution of Youth Baseball
After blogging about my 10 year old grandson Josh’s youth baseball experience the other day, naturally, I had to do the same for my younger grandson, eight year old Connor. Now with Connor, style and looking good for the fans is a very important part of the baseball experience, as you can see in his picture above. Sporting his old school Rickey Henderson shades and shiny metallic Candy Apple red batting helmet, Connor warms up in the on-deck circle and is clearly ready for action. He had some really great hits and made a few plays in the field also. In fact, I was really impressed with how “baseball knowledgable” all the players were in the game, fielding the ball well, throwing accurately to the right base and knowing not to run on a popup if they’re on base,etc. – all the little nuances. It’s a credit to their coaches, I think. These are all kids that are eight years old or younger, and thinking back to when I played in Little League (not long after Abner Doubleday invented the game), I remember being nine years old already when I played for the first time. These days kids start with tee-ball at five and are seasoned veterans by the time they reach eight. Members of my family have probably heard this story a thousand times but i’ll tell it anyway to make a point about how far youth baseball has come since I played. That first year at 9, I played third base and wasn’t a bad fielder, but my throws to first base were terrible. I hardly ever reached the base and if I did the throw usually wasn’t in the same zip code as the base. Even kids on the other teams would say “What’s wrong with you? Why can’t you throw the ball??” Well, after completing that first season, my good friend Tim, who loved sports more than anything and is the person who introduced me to all the sports I love to this day and taught me everything he knew about them, invited me to eat dinner over his house. As I was eating, he looked over at me and said “What are you doing??” With a puzzled look I replied “Eatin’ some food.” He shook his head and asked “Why are you eating with your left hand?” and of course my answer to that was easy – “Because I’m left-handed.” He started to laugh and asked why I had played the whole season of baseball right-handed. And again, my reply made sense to me anyway – “Because the glove you gave me to use went on the left hand so I figured I had to.” Needless to say my parents got me a glove that fit on my right hand for the following season, I switched over to the other side of the diamond and played first base, and even though I was never a really good player, I did a lot better and all was well with the world. Tim, of course, has gotten a lot of mileage out of that story over the years. He ran the auto insurance company I had my coverage through and once I called ahead and let him know I was coming in to pick up the insurance cards for a car I had purchased. When I walked in the door of the agency and let the receptionist know who I was she said “Oh, hi Lefty…how are you?”
Baseball’s “Tools of Ignorance”
I’m very proud of my grandson Josh who is the regular catcher on his youth baseball team this year and doing a fantastic job. I have to admit though, that he is poking a hole in my theory of how a coach picks his catcher on a little league team. I always enjoyed coaching my son’s Babe Ruth league teams when he was growing up, and one of the enjoyable things was taking a group of 12-15 kids who show up at the first practice and organizing them into something that resembles a real baseball team. There’s always the short, agile, quick kid who can hit, field and throw (usually because he had 3 older brothers who had him out in the field playing with them at the age of 2). He is automatically the pitcher / shortstop. Then there’s always a tall, gangly kid who doesn’t throw very well but catches the ball and for some reason always seems to be lefthanded. He is your first baseman. But I always joked that I had a method for picking out a catcher each year and Josh doesn’t fit the mold. The first practice session was usually held in early spring and up here in Buffalo that means the players are all decked out in winter jackets, winter gloves under their baseball mitts and winter wool hats instead of baseball caps. Then there was always one kid who would show up late, flying in on his BMX bike, hair messed up, decked out in shorts and a camouflage t-shirt, with snot hanging out of his nose. His idea of parking his bike would be to jump off it and let it crash into the backstop to stop it. You just waited for this kid to show up, pointed at him and said “Get the gear on, you’re the catcher!” I always assumed this was pretty close to the same method hockey coaches used to choose their goaltender, and football coaches their nose tackle, since all these positions require a “special breed” of person. There’s a reason baseball has always referred to the catcher’s equipment as the “tools of ignorance”. The poor guys who play the position take a beating and work harder than anybody else on the field. Actually I think it was a catcher who made up that term, and I always hear Fox broadcaster Tim McCarver, a former catcher, use it.
MLB – New Stars Reviving Game
There was lot of hype the other night over the major league debut of phenom pitcher Stephen Strasburg in Washington, and he more than lived up to the hype by pitching 7 strong innings, striking out 14 and not walking a single hitter, and picking up the win. The Nationals then drafted another young player with amazing stats, a player named Bryce Harper, who graduated high school 2 years early at 15, and put up amazing power numbers this season at the College of Southern Nevada. He was a catcher but is being moved to the outfield by the Nats. There are a lot of amazing young players who are starting to revive the game as it tries to move past the steroid era. The best thing I saw in watching the highlights of Strasburg’s debut was that he appears to be built like a normal human being, not a pumped-up Pillsbury Doughboy like Barry Bonds, Mark McGuire and Roger Clemens did at the end of their careers. The Braves have a bright young prospect also in outfielder Jason Heyward, who homered in his first major league at-bat and has drawn praise from Braves’ legend Hank Aaron and excited the fan base. Some of the other rising rookie stars are Marlins outfielder Mike Stanton, Giants catcher Buster Posey, Reds pitcher Mike Leake, and Mets 1st baseman Ike Davis. Obviously from looking at this list the majority of the rookie stars are in the National League, but there are some game-changers in the AL also, like outfielders Austin Jackson and Brennan Boesch of the Tigers, pitcher Mitch Talbot of the Indians ( a 26 year old rookie who was acquired from Tampa Bay), plus the Indians have a rising star in the minors who should be called up sometime soon, a catcher named – Oye Como Va! – Carlos Santana. Rangers closer Neftali Feliz has also been impressive. There are others waiting in the wings in the minors, and the sooner they get called up the better, since baseball needs the new blood to continue to put the steroid era behind it.
MLB – The Most Famous One-Hitter In Baseball History
The whole sports world has been talking about what should have been the final out in the Detroit Tigers / Cleveland Indians baseball game the other night in which Tigers’ pitcher Armando Galarraga was denied a perfect game due to a blown call by first base umpire Jim Joyce. Joyce, after seeing the replay, admitted he blew the call and was distraught after the game. Indians’ player Jason Donald, called safe at first on the blown call, said on Thursday after seeing the replay that he indeed was clearly out. Tigers’ manager Jim Leyland, as he should, argued the call vehemently right after it happened. Joyce apparently apologized to both Galarraga and Leyland after the game, and Leyland commented that he felt bad for Joyce since he was a top veteran umpire who just made an honest mistake. The most amazing reaction to the call came from Galarraga, who initially had a shocked look on his face when the call was made, then just smiled impishly at Joyce and continued the game. Afterwards Galarraga was a picture of class and dignity, saying he felt bad for Joyce and that he had just made an honest mistake, and that he could harbor no ill will against him especially after Joyce personally apologized to him after viewing the replay and realizing his mistake. “It takes a real man to do that”, said Galarraga. In another class move, in Thursday’s matinee game Galarraga took the lineup card out to Joyce (the home plate ump for this game) and shook his hand (see picture above). It moved Joyce to tears. My problem with the entire situation is the fact that Joyce was put in the position he was in, that baseball has no replay system to help the umps correct mistakes. This is 2010 and the argument of baseball purists to keep the “human element” in the game is ludicrous. Commissioner Bud Selig put a limited replay system into place for last season’s playoffs after a couple of questionable calls, in typical fashion, after the fact. Other than balls and strikes calls there is no reason not to have the ability for umpires to have a complete replay system. It wouldn’t hold up the games any longer than today’s incompetent pitchers who walk too many batters and go to full counts on almost every hitter. That’s another change baseball needs to implement – returning to the old bigger strike zone to make hitters swing the bats and speed up the game that is putting fans to sleep and boring a whole new generation of young fans away from the sport. But getting back on the topic, this whole episode showed 2 things – that in today’s world of spoiled, arrogant athletes it’s refreshing to see that a player and umpire can handle a major misunderstanding with class and grace, and that the fact the whole thing happened at all is another piece of evidence that Bud Selig is the worst commissioner in the history of major league sports.
MLB – Are Reds For Real?
One of the early season surprise teams in the National League this season is the Cincinnati Reds, who have a slim lead over the St. Louis Cardinals in the Central Division. Of course, every year seems to start with a few “pretenders” getting off to fast starts, then fading as the long season unfolds. The question is – are the Reds good enough for the long haul? They have one thing going for them – a smart, veteran manager in Dusty Baker who knows how to keep a young team interested and competitive for 162 games. Their starting pitching, after veterans Bronson Arroyo and Aaron Harang, is young and impressive. Arroyo and Harang will give the team consistency and innings, and the youngsters behind them, Johnny Cueto and Mike Leake, have been especially strong. Leake has maintained a low E.R.A. so far in his first 10 starts, which is impressive for a rookie who did not get any seasoning in the minors. Closer Francisco Cordero is a veteran who can do the job but has had a lot of shaky moments in his career. The Reds’ offense is amazingly built around the infielders, with power coming from 1B Joey Votto, 2B Brandon Phillips and 3B Scott Rolen. The club is a bit thin in the outfield, and maybe could make a trade at the deadline for an outfield bat. Ken Griffey Jr. would look good back in this lineup, if they could keep him awake in the clubhouse. (ouch!) What will also help them sustain their success over the long season is the presence of veterans like Rolen, Orlando Cabrera and Johnny Gomes, who are battle-tested. The Reds may eventually be overtaken by the powerhouse Cardinals for the division title but should at least stay in contention and possibly compete for a wild card spot.
MLB – Dodgers on a roll
This was supposed to be a disastrous season for the Los Angeles Dodgers, with their owners going through a nasty divorce which is impeding the team’s ability to fortify its’ roster. Luckily, they made a wise decision a couple years ago and brought in Joe Torre to manage the team after his tenure with the Yankees ended. Despite the ownership distraction, Torre has the team on a major roll, having now won 9 games in a row. Young stars Andre Ethier, James Loney, and Matt Kemp have fueled the winning streak, along with some timely contributions from Manny Ramirez and Casey Blake, among others. Catcher Russell Martin has made some of those offensive contributions, and has also done a terrific job handling a mostly anonymous pitching staff. The Dodgers will need Manny to pick up his game to stay ahead of their NL West competition, since the San Francisco Giants, with their top 3 starters being among baseball’s best, and the San Diego Padres, with their surprising young roster, look like they will be in the race for the long haul.
MLB – The Fightin’ Phils
The Philadelphia Phillies are the 2 time defending National League champions but look like they may face stiff competition in the NL East division this year from Atlanta, the New York Mets, and yes, possibly even the Washington Nationals. With Jimmy Rollins set to come back off the disabled list soon, the Phils still have the most potent lineup in the NL, led by newly re-signed slugger Ryan Howard, Chase Utley, Shane Victorino, Rollins and the underrated Jayson Werth. They substituted Roy Halladay for Cliff Lee in their starting rotation and haven’t missed a beat there, and Cole Hamels looks to be returning to his old reliable form. I like the Fightin’ Phils to win their division again this year and represent the NL in the World Series for a third straight season. They are clearly still the most talented team, even if they do wear pink uniforms. (C’mon…that strange shade of red they wear is HOT PINK!)
MLB – Toronto Blue Jay Fans should be upset
Major league baseball made an announcement the other day that just boggles the mind. They are moving an inter-league series to be played in late June between the Toronto Blue Jays and Philadelphia Phillies from the Rogers Centre in Toronto to Philadelphia, due to security concerns with the G20 Summit being held in Toronto at that time. The games will be played as if Toronto is the home team – the Jays will bat last and a designated hitter will be used. Are you kidding me? This is a series that would have marked the return of star pitcher Roy Halladay to Toronto and most likely would be an attendance boost for the struggling club. This series could be a huge competitive disadvantage to the Phils’ NL East competitors. If the Phillies wind up dominating or even sweeping that series and finish a small amount of games ahead of the New York Mets or Atlanta Braves at season’s end, will those teams have a legitimate beef? Just another Bud Selig-induced nightmare.
MLB – Go Rays!
Anybody who despises the current state of major league baseball, with its’ big-market team domination, has to be cheering for the Tampa Bay Rays to reprise their season of 2 years ago, when they shocked all the experts and wound up in the World Series. They are a solid young team with a great manager, Joe Maddon, and are off to a terrific start in the AL East. In order to stay where they are now, atop the division, they will have to hold off the top 2 poster children for big-market domination, The New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox. The Red Sox are looking more and more like a team on the decline, but don’t count out the Yankees. They are a strong team that has had early-season injury troubles with a few of their older players – Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera and now Andy Pettite. Power-hitting first baseman Mark Texiera has gotten off to a slow start also. The Yanks will most certainly make a run at some point and it will be interesting to see if the Rays can keep up with them.