Random Thoughts while watching the Twins

I once again have the opportunity to watch an entire Twins game with sound, and once again am going to take advantage while blogging whilst watching.  I won't be doing a live blog, since those seem to always end up boring lately and it's hard to get excited about the Mariners, but I'm sure some game or announcer related things will sneak in here.  I don't know.  I don't know if there's time.  I gotta go to Home Depot later.

-  First, it seems pitching a perfect game has become easier than your sister after a couple glasses of Boone's Farm.  On the heels of Dallas Braden and Roy Halladay's perfectos, Armando Galarraga pitched 8 and 2/3 perfect innings before having it broken up by an infield it, and according the radio the guy was only safe thanks to a bad call by the umpire (I haven't seen the replay, but I'll assume the umpire was probably racist).  And the list of guys with perfect games is so weird.  Out of the 20 perfect games, you have some that don't surprise you.  The Hall of Famers:  Sandy Koufax, Cy Young, Addie Joss, Jim Bunning, and Catfish Hunter and soon to be Hall of Famers:  Randy Johnson and Roy Halladay (if he can keep it up).  Then there are guys with electric stuff you don't really surprise you:  David Cone, Dennis Martinez, and even Mike Witt - the fact that they were unhittable for one day isn't a huge shock.

But then the rest of these guys.  Throw out Charlie Robertson because I've never heard of him and the two guys who did it in 1880 because the rules were all kinds of fucked up then, but Len Barker?  He only won double-digit games twice and never posted an ERA under 4.80.  Don Larsen?  You would never had heard of him if he didn't toss that perfect game in the World Series.  He never won more than 11 games in a season, and spent most of his career as a reliever.

The weirdest part is the sheer amount of soft-tossing lefties who achieved perfection:  David Wells, Tom Browning, Dallas Braden, Kenny Rogers, and Mark Buehrle.  That's as many nancy-boy southpaws who have done it as Hall of Famers.  It's just so weird.  I'm not taking anything away from the achievement, any way you look at it, it's still only been accomplished 20 times, but the list is mind-boggling.  Apparently Brian Duensing is more likely to toss a perfecto than Felix Hernandez.  So weird.

-  I just saw the replay.  That was a bad call.  I was also just reminded that Griffey Junior announced his retirement today.  Man was that guy good.  And since I am pretty sure he was never using anything performance enhancing (other than Mr. Burns' Nerve Tonic, which is not on the banned list) I can't help but wonder what would have happened if he had gone on the Barry Bonds diet. 

Griffey played until about 30 years old before he started getting injured all the frickin' time.  At that point, he had hit 438 home runs with a batting line of .296/.380/.568, giving him an OPS+ of 147 in 7,319 plate appearances.  At age 30, Bonds had hit 292 homers with a line of .286/.398/.541 for an OPS+ of 158 in 6,038 plate appearances.  Pretty close to equal.  So let's say Griffey stays mostly healthy and got as many at-bats as Bonds after age 30, and hit home runs at his same pace.  He would have ended up with 831 career HRs.  And if he hit the Balco diet and hit them at the rate Bonds did after age 30, he would have ended up with 908. 

I know it's a pretty useless exercise and uses a ridiculous amount of assumptions and conjecture, but still kind of fun to look at.  One thing is clear:  Griffey should have used the roids.  Burnsie's Tonic just couldn't quite cut it. 

-  Matt Tolbert somehow got a hit.  Dick:  "The Twins have some speed on the bases."  No, he's white and "gritty" and "scrappy."  That doesn't make him fast.  And he promptly tries to steal and gets thrown out by 8 feet.  Beautiful.  Gardy's fascination with that guy might be the worst part of him as a manager, and that's saying alot.

-  Now Punto walks, and Dick wants him to steal too.  What's this guy's fascination with stealing?  He would have thrived down in New Orleans after Katrina. 

-  Milton Bradley just stole third without a throw thanks to Kevin Slowey paying zero attention to him.  That's your go ahead run with only one out in a 0-0 game here in the bottom of the fifth.  I know Milton Bradley's crazy.  Like Carl Everett crazy, but I love his game.  I bet you didn't even know that in 2008 he led the league in OBP and OPS, and that he's broken a .400 on base percentage three times.  But he doesn't steal a ton of bases (career high of 17, hasn't hit double digits since 2007, and the two he stole in this inning just tripled his season total) so nobody cares that he gets on base all the time.  He's like the anti-Vince Coleman, but you probably like Coleman better because you're a moron.  Thanks for ruining baseball.

-   Oh, and he scored on a sac fly, so his heads up steal of third probably just won the game for the Mariners - who, I'll remind you, I claimed were a sleeper World Series contender.  I'm so dumb.

-  Since the M's are basically out of it already, I wonder when they'll deal Cliff Lee.  He's on the hook for $9 million this year, but he's a free agent after this season.  If the Twins tried to acquire him (LOL) I'd assume they wouldn't be looking to add payroll in the amount and length he'd be asking for, so it would have to be a half-year rental sort of deal.  Which I would be fine with, depending on what they are asking for.  I'm not sure what exactly I'd be willing to give up - haven't really thought about it - and I'm sure somebody else would be willing to offer him more + a contract (I'd bet he ends up a Met), so it's really just a pipe dream, but since they won't end up making a big trade deadline deal, pipe dreams is all I got.

-  They just showed the Galarraga replay again, and man, I don't like the guy or anything but that really sucks for him.  Maybe even worse, apparently the umpire admitted after the game that he blew it.  I'm sure that makes Galarraga feel a lot better.  Ugh.  Just a terrible situation.  And if Miguel Cabrera isn't a terrible terrible terrible fielder and let's the second basemen get that, we aren't even discussing it and are instead trying to figure out why there are so many perfect games this year.  He was probably drunk.

-  By the way, I just want you all to know that Matt Wieters fucking sucks.  It's like he's purposefully going out of his way to intentionally hurt me.  I'm shifting all my love to Stephen Strasburg, who, by the way, will be making his first big league start June 8th, which is only six days away.  I will be flying out to Washington for the occasion.*

-  It's still 1-0 Mariners and we're now in the 7th.  The good news is if they can get Lee out of the game (doubtful) Seattle's closer is David Aardsma, who in no way should be a closer and is the kind of closer you can rally against in the ninth.  Just like Jon Rauch.  :sadface:

-  Cuddyer dinger.  Tie game.  Suck it, Cliff Lee.  And Snacks.  I know you hate the guy with everything you have, but I can't enable this anymore.  There's no reason to hate him, guy can mash.  Sure, he chases the slider down and away all the time, but it's small price to pay for the power he brings.

-  Oh hell yes.  Cuddy is leaving the team for bereavement because his father-in-law died (that's not the hell yes part) and Danny Valencia will be called up.  Thank god we finally get to see this guy play.  I'm sick of hearing about him without seeing him.  And what happened to Luke Hughes?  And Trevor Plouffe?  Why do they keep recycling Tolbert and Casilla instead of giving one of these guys an extended look?  And just cut Harris.  Oh wait, you geniuses signed him for two years even though you only had to sign him for one.  For such a successful and well run organization sometimes these guys are dumb as shit.

-  Valencia's stats at AAA this year:  .298/.350/.380 with no homers and 34-13 BB/K ratio.  I could not be less excited.  Sounds like another slapper.  It's almost like they draft these kind of guys on purpose.  Seriously, the draft is in like a week and I expect them to go off the board and get a guy whose bio reads:

PROS:  Scrappy.  Tough.  Gritty.  Hustles.  Dives a lot.  Slides into first to show his hustle despite all the evidence that it's a dumb play.  Can play multiple positions.  Regularly invites teammates over for a barbecue.

CONS:  Can't hit.  No idea of the strike zone.  Gets an extra-base hit once a month.  Makes terrible base-running decisions.  Is either short and white or short and ethnic.  Definitely short.  Is a "Gardy" kind of guy.

-  Slowey lets the first two batters get hits in the seventh, but gets out of it with a double play (started by Tolbert!) and a pop-up.  We got a ballgame here folks.

-  Apparently they've given up.  Leading off the 8th, Punto attempted to bunt and ended up striking out and then Span did bunt and was thrown out by Lee on a pretty nice play.  I guess they've decided they can't hit him.  If only it was Aardsma out there.

-  I've come around on the Celtics/Lakers final.  I'm pretty fired up for it.  Definitely rooting Celtics here.  Even though I hate all Red Sox fans and most Patriot fans (but definitely all Red Sox fans), I have no problem with the Celtics.  I grew up a Laker fan because I hearted Magic Johnson and hated the Celtics and Bird because I had to, as I've gotten older I appreciate the Celtics more and more, and I'm rooting for them because I hate Kobe and still love KG and definitely love Ray Allen.  I've also learned to appreciate Michael Jordan.  I hated that guy and considered him nothing more than a high-scoring ball hog who managed to win.  But after watching a new generation of ball hogs who suck (I'm looking at you Tracy McGrady) I have to give Jordan some props.  He's still just the fifth best player ever, but that's higher than I used to have him.

-  I think Jesse Crain has a new curveball.  That thing is pretty nasty.  No way he had that pitch before, I would have noticed.  And he put Seattle down 1-2-3 in the 8th.  Pretty sure that's never happened before.

-  Sweet!  Aardsma is in to face Mauer/Morneau/Cuddy in the ninth.  This probably will end up not even being a save situation for Rauch.

-  Four pitch walk to Mauer.  Looking like a Morneau 2-run dinger here.

-  Or a wild pitch and a Morneau ground out to move him to third (look at that Twins baseball!  Giving up his at-bat to move a runner up!)  So now we have go-ahead run on third with one out for Cuddy.

-  And he hits the ball as hard as you can, but right at the shortstop who is playing in.  So it's up to Kubel.  All he does is win games.  Or strikeout.  Also a big fan of the pop-up.

-  Fly out.  Shit.  And apparently this has turned into a live blog of the game.

-  Guerrier goes 1-2-3 in the bottom of the ninth.  And I am getting way tired.  Stupid west coast.  And I hate traveling out there, every single sporting event is done by 8pm.  When you're out there alone and have nothing better to do than sit in a hotel bar and watch sports, that really puts a bit of a damper on things.

-  Twins lose.  Excellent base-running by the Mariner guy.  I'd write more on that play but I'm really tired.  Suffice it to say, that call to ruin the Big Cat's perfect game wasn't the only bad call tonight.





* = No, I'm not.

It's been a while

Yes, I know, sorry. 33 Hours of meetings in four days, followed each night by a company outing, then coming home to a baby and a wife who was alone with that baby for four nights doesn't leave a lot of time to write semi-witty, mainly nonsensical comments about the wonderful world of sports. I would have hoped one of the other contributors to this blog would have chipped in here somewhere, but it turns out they're lame. I have some time here as I take a break from mowing my far too large lawn with my far too small mower while mom & baby are at relatives, so let's see what's what.

- First thing, the Phillies/Reds game on Tuesday was pretty good, and the only worthwhile thing that came out of the week in Philly. Griffey didn't start, and wasn't going to play, so that took some of the wind out of the sails, but he did pinch hit in the 8th or 9th. The whole crowd stood and applauded, and then my new least favorite pitcher, replacing Mark Buehrle, Tom Gordon walked him on four pitches, none of which even sniffed the strike zone. What a giant pussy. His home crowd booed him. I hope that bear from that book with his name in it finds him and eats his face off. Overall, Citizen's Bank Park was good. I wouldn't say great, there's nothing here that blows your skirt up - Player T-shirts are $25 (we got a voucher, so I picked up a Hamels shirt, but the beer flowed like wine and a good time was had.

- I suppose the biggest news is the 1-0 lead the Celts took on the Lake Show in the Finals, after Paul Pierce recieved some Bud Kilmer Juice in the locker room and came back after being carted off in a wheelchair. I LOVE the conspiracy theorists who think it was an intentional bit to fire up the crowd and the team. We didn't land on the moon either. I'm torn in this series, because I'd love for KG to win a title, but I'd hate for the Sports Guy to have another of his teams win. I guess the Kobe hatred that still courses through my veins is the big tiebreaker. I can't stand that son of a bitch. Him, Michael Jordan, and Emmitt Smith make my triumvirate of hate, and I can't think of another player in the history of any sport that I hated anywhere near as much. Minnesota athletes exempt, they are a whole different category.

- Can't Buy Me Love was a truly excellent movie. Did you know the dude who turned into Rico Suave was in this? Kenny Fisher, too.

- My golf picks for this week, which I didn't get a chance to post so you'll just have to believe me, were Brandt Snedeker and Robert Allenby. Snedeker is currently Even and in 17th, Allenby is +1 and 26th. Not bad. Does anybody want to write up a US Open preview for the site next week? Anybody? Bueller?

- I read something the other day about how Greg Maddux and Ken Griffey are the opposite of Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds, and I couldn't agree more. Maddux and Griffey aged, showed their age and injuries, and had some fairly poor seasons, but there isn't a question out there about if they stayed natural. Griffey is number six on the all-time homerun list, and two of the guys above him were clear Roids guys, so let's call him fourth all-time behind Aaron, Ruth, and Mays. Griffey also missed the equivalent of about three full seasons, but still managed to hit 30 home runs last season at 37 years old. Honestly, I think he is the best overall non-roided baseball player of my generation. It's between him, A-Rod, a pre-roid Bonds, and Brian Harper.

- You know who else is pretty underrated actually, at least by me: Larry Jones. I've never liked him, mostly because the guy voluntarily goes by Chipper. That's something people should call you behind your back if they don't like you, and choosing it as your moniker is suspect. But with Jones hitting .421 this season, he's been in the limelight quite a bit and in looking at his career numbers, they're pretty impressive. Career batting averge of .310, with 2208 total hits. Behind just Wade Boggs and Pie Traynor in average among third basemen, and with a total of 400 homeruns, he's behind just Mike Schmidt, Eddie Matthews, and Darrell Evans amongt primary third basemen. So I guess he's not that bad. Although Jeff Bagwell is still gay.

- Lastly, before I start the stupid mower back up, the MLB draft was this past week. The Twins had three first rounders, making two very good picks and one horrible, T-Wolves like choice. Their first pick, at #14 was high school outfielder Aaron Hicks. Hicks is known as a five-tool player, and was also a pitcher with a 90+ mph fastball in high school and has first round talent as either a pitcher or a center fielder. Rumor has it the Twins will start him off in the outfield, which is what he prefers, although many teams think his future lies on the hill. With Gomez, Ben Revere, and Joe Benson all in the system, pitcher might be the way to go. Hopefully they figure it out. He's being favorably compared to Darryl Strawberry - the hitting/fielding/running, not the partying/drinking/drugs, although if he can hit, what do I care?

- The other good pick was the awesomely named Shooter Hunt, a pitcher (naturally) out of Tulane. Baseball America ranked Hunt the #11 prospect, and the Twins got him at 31, so if he's as good as BA thinks, he's a definite steal.

- The bad pick was closer Carlos Gutierrez out of Miami, universally looked at as a horrid first round pick. Expert Keith Law didn't even have him in his top 75. He's a college closer, with a 90-94 mph sinking fastball. It's looked at as a very good pitch, but it's also his only pitch. As the 27th pick in a draft, you need to have a second pitch at a minimum, if not a third. He's probably a pretty stellar third round pick.

- That's all I have time for. Go F yourself.

So Now I'm in Philly

The city of brotherly suck. Out here for four days for our national sales conference. Which means I will be in meetings all day, and "functions" all night. And since I've only been with this company for under two months, I know all of like four people. This could monumentally suck. Rumor has it one of the functions is going to be a "1920s Prohibition party." That better not mean no alcohol. There's no way I could deal with these people without alcohol. I'd rather die.

The one very cool thing is it is confirmed we will be attending a Phillies game on Tuesday. It's always cool to check out other parks, and I've only been to the Gaydome and Fenway, so I'm excited to check out whatever this park is. I know it used to be Veterans Stadium, but at this point it's probably a new park or been renamed. Pitching matchup is Aaron Harang vs. Adam Eaton, which is as big a snooze as possible. Was hoping to get Cueto, Volquez, and/or Hamels, but whatever. At least it isn't Jamie Moyer, and as I wrote before, the Reds are a very exciting young team and it will cool to get a chance to see Jay Bruce.

Even better, is Griffey Jr. is at 599 homeruns. If he doesn't hit one the next two nights, it will be very cool to be there to possibly see him hit #600. Then I would have been at both his 600th homerun game, and Cal Ripken's 3,000th hit game. I would also like to mention here that when Ripken got his 3,000th hit, Dawg refused to stand and applaud, and actively yelled at those of us who have a respect for history who cheered. Although he's not alone in his feelings. The radio dude on the way to the airport this morning was bitching about fans cheering and standing for Manny's 500th in Baltimore last night. His big example, "Do you think if a Yankee hit a milestone in Boston they would stand and cheer?" Even if they wouldn't, and I think it's 50/50 they would - remember, they gave Pedro a standing O when he came back to pitch - do I really have to explain the differences between Boston/Baltimore and New York/Boston? I mean, really? That's your example? And that's not even getting into the fact that Boston has billions of "fans" in a whole bunch of other cities. I'm guessing with Baltimore's recent history, there were more Sox fans than Oriole fans there. In conclusion, people are morons and so is Dawger.

Back to Griffey, it's pretty incredible to think how good he's been, without even a hint of the Steroids taint. I'm going to run some nerd numbers and delve into this a bit further at some point.

And what's the deal with the NBA Finals not starting up until Thursday? I mean, I know what the deal is - ratings and money - but come on. Five days between games? I've already been over inundated with enough stories about the classic Celtic/Laker battles to last me two lifetimes, and now we're going to get five more days? At least cover the games, not the nostalgia. Like who is going to guard Kobe, Pierce or Posey? If Pierce, how will that affect his offensive game? Which Ray Allen will be there? Who is going to stop KG, and will he assert his dominance or keep playing the unselfish superstar role? Will they try Odom on him? Can Fisher handle Rondo and vice versa? Will Kobe revert to me-first ball to try to establish himself as the next Jordan? And hundreds more, but all they are giving us is rehashes of the same old Bird/Magic and company highlights. And I loved those teams, and loved that rivalry - but I'm already sick of it. Play a damn game already.

Be back later. I'm supposed to go meet some people at the bar now. Also, Sidler, Snake, and Dawg if you're reading this try to post something this week since I'm likely going to be very busy.

Back. Not drunk. Sad face. The Mets game is on ESPN game right now, and the first thing I see is a graphic on how Johan led the AL during a five year stretch in wins, strikeouts, ERA, and BA against. Depressing. Jon Miller then brings up how some people thought there was a little erosion in his numbers last year (true) to which Joe Morgan replies "It was mental. Minnesota wouldn't sign him, so his head wasn't in it." Jesus. Too depressed to continue.