The baseball thread

[Lammycat]

big league vibes for Peter Gammons! I'm surprised they haven't mentioned it on NESN tonite! or maybe they did once while we were in wholefoods...

Yeah, Jerry and Don mentioned Gammo in the 3rd inning, sending out hopes for a speedy recovery. An amazing baseball fan who changed the way the game is covered/reported with his Sunday columns in The Globe.

 

I'll add to the sentiments for a full recovery....

Edited June 28, 2006 by Lammycat

[bobbob1313]

Hope he recovers. He's an intelligent guy (and he's always liked the marlins!).

[Sir Stewart]

Get well prayers to The Real Commish, indeed.

 

So, I didn't have to touch the loss column when updating the Red Sox' record today.

[Guest baseball bobblehead]

yayayayayaayay!

[Lammycat]

So, I didn't have to touch the loss column when updating the Red Sox' record today.

Going for 11 in a row "W's" tonight. Also, going for A.L. record-tying 15 games in a row error-less streak. And of course, Petey back in Fenway.

[Sir Stewart]

Going for 11 in a row "W's" tonight. Also, going for A.L. record-tying 15 games in a row error-less streak. And of course, Petey back in Fenway.

I'm going to try to get tix at the box office today around noon. Never tried that before. I'm in the area, so what the hell. Most likely, I'll end up at Beerworks across the street to watch the game.

[tongue-tied lightning]

not a good siogn when ya can't beat the Royals

[wheelco]

not a good siogn when ya can't beat the Royals

KC's killin' in interleague

who here would vote to ban interleague play?

 

ME

[darkstar]

I'm going to try to get tix at the box office today around noon. Never tried that before. I'm in the area, so what the hell. Most likely, I'll end up at Beerworks across the street to watch the game.

 

 

Dang! you get tix today for that and it's a miracle. Sawx are firing on all cylinders now. Got to see the game Monday on NESN (was up in Mass for a client visit), sometimes I miss living up there, but when February rolls around I love living in Nashville. Was good though to visit. Finally gotta good pizza and got to hear Sean and Rem-dog on the NESN. Hope Petey gets a good ovation today and no boos.

[Lammycat]

Dang! you get tix today for that and it's a miracle. Sawx are firing on all cylinders now. Got to see the game Monday on NESN (was up in Mass for a client visit), sometimes I miss living up there, but when February rolls around I love living in Nashville. Was good though to visit. Finally gotta good pizza and got to hear Sean and Rem-dog on the NESN. Hope Petey gets a good ovation today and no boos.

Darkstar: You NEED to get MLB Extra Innings. It's the main thing that keeps me sane during the season. I've been able to catch @155 Sox games/yr. since getting the package (4-5 years now) living a few thousand miles from New England. I often get the NESN feed when they're on the road, too. Of course, you can watch tonight's game on ESPN2, as well.

Edited June 28, 2006 by Lammycat

[Sir Stewart]

I'm a Joe & Jerry boy, myself.

[darkstar]

Darkstar: You NEED to get MLB Extra Innings. It's the main thing that keeps me sane during the season. I've been able to catch @155 Sox games/yr. since getting the package (4-5 years now) living a few thousand miles from New England. I often get the NESN feed when they're on the road, too. Of course, you can watch tonight's game on ESPN2, as well.

 

 

Yeah, thanks Kat. I know. Every friggin year I make a note to get the package and then I frigging forget. I'll order it after the all-star break, I think it's half price then. I watch every game I can on ESPN or FOX (though I friggin hate McCarver and Buck). The only thing is that if the Sox are the visitor you get the home team feed. I love the NESN guys but hell, if I can see the boys what the frig right?

 

Was hillarious listening to WEEI yesterday, all the callers, then Schillings bit on the "Dennis and Callahan" show. Ya gotta love the dudes calling in claiming to be experts then you find out they have coached little leauge for 20 years and they think they know the game. I miss the Mass accent...mine has almost disappeared after 13 years in Nashville, but withing 10 minutes of being back in Mass it comes raging back!

 

I'm a Joe & Jerry boy, myself.

 

 

Coleman and Castiglione!!!!!!! something about listening to a game on the radio eh?

[Sir Stewart]

Coleman and Castiglione!!!!!!! something about listening to a game on the radio eh?

Especially when you don't have cable!

Wow, you're old school: Ken Coleman has passed. That's Jerry Trupiano.

[cryptique]

who here would vote to ban interleague play?

I thought I'd like it.

 

I don't.

[Lammycat]

I watch every game I can on ESPN or FOX (though I friggin hate McCarver and Buck). The only thing is that if the Sox are the visitor you get the home team feed. I love the NESN guys but hell, if I can see the boys what the frig right?

That's the rub, right there. I can't stand listening to most of the network guys (esp. McCarver). Herschisher is great at the job, though.

And, as I said above, I get a lot of the NESN feeds even when the Sox are on the road. I don't know why. I also can't get weei out here.

 

With Extra Innings, they offer an earlybird special pre-season and very early season rate: $150-155, I think. Mark your calendar or something.

Edited June 28, 2006 by Lammycat

[benjamin]

who here would vote to ban interleague play?

 

No Way!!!!

 

I scored 3rd row tickets to the LA Dodgers vs LA Angels (of Anaheim) this weekend. Do you know how rowdy that'll be? wait... it's in Anaheim. Sigh, the only way it'll get rowdy is if they run out of sushi in the 5th inning.

 

Hopefully it's a redemption of my last Angels game, if any of you remember my Tigers vs Angels game I went to a couple months ago where they don't serve beer in the aisles! Bastards!

Edited June 28, 2006 by benjamin_kenobi

[tongue-tied lightning]

BOSTON (AP) -- Peter Gammons, an ESPN analyst and member of the writer's wing of the baseball Hall of Fame, was in good condition Wednesday at a Boston hospital after surgery for a brain aneurysm.

 

The 61--year-old Gammons was treated at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston after being airlifted from a hospital on Cape Cod, where he was stricken at his home Tuesday morning.

 

"Peter is resting comfortably after surgical repair of a brain aneurysm," his wife, Gloria, said in a statement. "We appreciate all of your good wishes and ask that you keep Peter in your thoughts and prayers. Please understand that we are asking for our privacy at this time as we focus on Peter's recovery."

[Guest baseball bobblehead]

I thought I'd like it.

 

I don't.

i LOVE it!

 

[wheelco]

I personally love the DH

 

no kidding, folks

[quarter23cd]

who here would vote to ban interleague play?

Meh. Interleague play is cool, but I guess its lost some of its initial appeal. I'll admit that something about it makes them feel vaguely like exhibition games, but maybe that's just because they're still an oddity--you get a couple of those series a year, but its not the norm.

 

But, hey, I still like it. I mean, take it away and whaddya got? "Hey, look, two more series with the Royals and Devil Rays!"

[darkstar]

Especially when you don't have cable!

Wow, you're old school: Ken Coleman has passed. That's Jerry Trupiano.

 

 

Jeeeeezus no kidding right? wow...I forgot troop is on there now...been away for a long time I guess. Coleman was on when I was a youngstah!

[Guest baseball bobblehead]

Updated: June 28, 2006

The good son returns homeBy Amy K. Nelson

ESPN The Magazine

 

 

BOSTON -- The wrapped bottle of Cristal champagne was sitting in his new chair. A case of his country's Presidente beer was nearby on the floor with a card on top from Jason Varitek addressed to "Petey." Tommy McLaughlin, the visitors' clubhouse manager at Fenway Park, made sure to give him the "Cal Ripken" locker in the cramped clubhouse, with two empty stalls nearby. And, as a final welcoming act, McLaughlin made sure to stock up on Dominican food.

 

When Pedro Martinez returned to Boston on Tuesday for the first time since he signed a four-year, $53 million contract with the New York Mets more than 18 months ago, he walked into a den of love and happiness. At 7-3 with a 3.01 ERA this season, Martinez will take the mound Wednesday night and pitch against many of his former teammates and friends.

 

When asked last week how he thought he should be received, Martinez referenced a phrase from his native country.

 

Before joining the Mets to begin last season, Pedro Martinez, right, was a teammate of David Ortiz for two years with the Red Sox."We have a saying in the Dominican Republic," he said. "The good son always returns home."

 

A few days before returning to Boston, Martinez, 34, said in an interview in Toronto that he was unsure how he would be received. He also reflected about his seven years here, during which he went 117-37 with a 2.52 ERA and won two Cy Young awards. There are many memories, but he spoke of a few special ones.

 

Martinez said he remembered the beautiful summers and the lake behind his house, where he would often go to escape his enormous celebrity. He recalled his 1999 All-Star game MVP performance at Fenway, saying it was when he really felt like he and the fans "became close." He remembered how much he enjoyed interacting with fans in the outfield because of the low walls. And how he also played jokes on teammates, especially when he once scared Mo Vaughn by greeting him in the dugout with a Yoda mask.

 

"He hasn't changed one bit," said Mets bullpen coach Guy Conti, who's known Martinez for 18 years. "One day he'll pitch his heart out and the next day he'll come in wearing a mask. He can be like an 8-year-old boy."

 

With a scheduled off day on Monday, Martinez chose to revisit parts of his past. He spoke with his godbrother, visited with friends and spent part of the day at City Hall as a group of female employees greeted him with hugs and kisses, which he called "beautiful." He also checked in with his dentist ("no cavities"), saw one of his doctors and walked around the city. Then he arrived in the Red Sox players' parking lot a little before 4 p.m. and walked into the home clubhouse with this greeting: "Hi everybody, what's going on?"

 

Martinez even had enough time to sleep in on Tuesday morning, blowing off a good friend.

 

"I was up at 8:45 this morning just to make sure his lunch was ready," said David Ortiz, who embraced his former teammate and countryman near the batting cages before the game.

 

Martinez also got his first reception inside the park as he made his way to his news conference. In a surreal scene, Martinez stepped out of the visitors' clubhouse as photographers' bulbs snapped while he walked through the dark corridors of Fenway Park. Scores of adoring park employees parted to either side of him; a wave of food-service vendors, security guards and grounds-crew workers applauded, hooted and hollered while clicking their cell-phone cameras and yelling, "We miss you Pedro!" and "We love you!"

 

Martinez, always a man of grandeur, shook hands, embraced and hollered right back, with an enormous smile. "Aramark!" he yelled to the Aramark food vendors behind the counters. An older man quickly approached and reached for Martinez's hand. "Thank you for the ring," Aramark employee Rae Lunam said, with tears in his eyes.

 

There was a time when a feel-good reunion seemed an unlikely possibility. Though he has recently tried to remain diplomatic about what occurred in the winter of 2004, Martinez still appears to harbor hurt feelings over what he perceived to be a lack of respect and commitment from the Boston front office.

 

In particular, Martinez points to a meeting with owners John Henry and Larry Lucchino at a Dominican Republic airport in early December 2004. The suggestion of seeing Lucchino in Boston made Martinez laugh at the memory of that meeting.

 

"I remember that laugh from Lucchino when I said, 'Hey, I got four years,' " Martinez said. "He goes, 'bull----. You've got to be kidding me. Nah, you didn't get four years.' And I had sunglasses on, I went and took them off like this [he motions very slowly] and I said, 'I got four years.'

 

"John Henry said, 'You guys, just get it done. Get it done.' "

 

That, of course, didn't happen. Martinez said the original offer was just one year with a nonguaranteed option if he were to get hurt. At the last minute, he said, the Red Sox offered three years, but he had already given his word to Mets GM Omar Minaya, who had made the four-year offer to Martinez, that he would negotiate. Through a spokesman, Lucchino declined to comment.

 

"We played our cards right," Mets assistant GM Tony Bernazard said. "The timing was right, and we knew that the window opened [to negotiate]. That's why the window was so important, because we knew it wasn't going to be open for long. We were able to take advantage."

 

 

"I remember that laugh from [Larry] Lucchino when I said, 'Hey, I got four years.'"

-- Pedro Martinez on receiving an offer

from the MetsMartinez became a Met and went 15-8 with a 2.82 ERA in his first year while resuscitating a losing franchise. Pedro was an attraction and his starts became an event -- just as they were in Boston. But he also was sad, he said. Sad and disappointed that he couldn't participate during the ring ceremony to further celebrate the World Series victory, which was the highlight of his career. He was sad about leaving his Red Sox teammates and sad that the Red Sox didn't consider the possibility that he could someday go into the Hall of Fame in another cap.

 

"That will be a little confusing," he said. "What hat am I going to wear? Thank God it's not my decision anymore. That was something that I thought Boston would take into consideration, out of respect just say, 'Hey, maybe we can keep him here for three years.'"

 

To former Boston general manager Dan Duquette -- who traded for Martinez in 1997, sending Tony Armas and Carl Pavano to Montreal -- the departure of the franchise pitcher wasn't as surprising because of the current free-agent culture. But retaining Martinez "would have been my goal," Duquette said. "He was a fantastic pitcher. Pedro did a great job; I guess it was time for him to move on."

 

On Tuesday, it was time for him to come back. But how would the fans react? Would there be bad feelings about the way Martinez left and his bitterness thereafter? As Duquette points out with a laugh, "You never can predict what they will do."

 

Martinez hoped the fans would remember his work and his heart.

 

"I don't know anybody that would like to be received like a bad person or like a delinquent," Martinez said. "I can say proudly that I did my job. I earned everything they paid me. I don't really have to say it because the numbers are there, but I lived up to every expectation they had."

 

The question was answered at the end of the first inning, when the Red Sox showed a video tribute of the right-hander's career with a message saying: "Welcome Back, and Welcome Always, Pedro Martinez." The crowd stood and chanted his first name, and after a few moments Martinez, dressed in his black Mets uniform with the number 45 on the back, came out and raised his hands in the air. He bowed, wrapped his arms around his shoulders as if he were simulating a hug, and then tipped his cap.

 

"It felt great," Martinez said. "It's emotional, unless you don't have a heart."

 

For Dr. Charles Steinberg, executive vice president of public affairs for the Red Sox, "It was one of those moments that gives you chills."

 

Steinberg said an e-mail chain between himself, owners Tom Werner, Henry and Lucchino, GM Theo Epstein and manager Terry Francona started roughly 10 days ago. The discourse was about Pedro's return, and all were in unison that they wanted to celebrate with class.

 

"You don't demonize the enemy," Steinberg said. "You still honor and value the person regardless of what uniform they're wearing."

 

The good son had finally come home.

[ction]

I still love Pedro. And I wouldn't be at all surprised if he hit Youklis in the first at bat tonight.

[Lammycat]

BBB: do you have a link to the article? I can't find one....

[Guest baseball bobblehead]

the good son comes home