MLB 2007

[Lammycat]

Here's a somewhat entertaining espn.com article by Jim Caple entitled "22 Reasons Bonds won't pass Aaron."

 

Really, though, what a clusterfuck that scene's gonna be. I hope he does it in Milwaukee in Bud's neck of the woods. Bud'll look like that guy you always see at partys that doesn't know anybody and doesn't know what to do with his hands, eyes, or himself:

 

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/stor...&id=2823671

[bobbob1313]

 

I remember it well...

 

 

Meanwhile, the Marlins and Mets blogs and message boards are abuzz with arguments over who is the superior player and who has the most potential, Hanley Ramirez or Jose Reyes.

 

Reyes is faster, but Hanley's gonna be cranking out 30 homers a year within the next 5 years. I'm obviously biased, but I think the fact that Hanley reached the same level Reyes did last year in his first season speaks volumes for his potential.

 

This, of course, leads to arguments of who has the better left infield. It is obviously the Marlins, and it's really not that close. (Imo and all that).

[Reni]

All of the above.

 

I have seen Rocky in a pink tutu - he sure makes a purty ballerina.

[bobbob1313]

Bases jacked with no outs. Let's continue the good offense!

 

2-0 with no outs!

 

A team as bad as the Nationals cannot afford to beat itself with 2 errors in the first inning. The ball hasn't left the infield yet.

 

 

Carpenter has elbow problem, will miss next start

By Joe Strauss

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

04/03/2007

 

Cardinals ace Chris Carpenter experienced tightness in his right elbow after Sunday night's season-opening start against the Mets and will miss his next scheduled start.

 

Carpenter was examined this afternoon by Cardinals team physician Dr. George Paletta.

 

No further information about Carpenter's condition was immediately available.

 

Carpenter struggled in the opener, allowing nine hits and five earned runs as the Cardinals lost 6-1. He threw 101 pitches in six innings.

 

I hope it's just a one start thing and he's back. Hate to see a stud pitcher go down. This probably spells doom for the Cards. Goodbye repeat.

[Oil Can Boyd]

I checked the box scores this am on the way to work.

All is right with the world again.

 

Exactly. I love reading box scores ...

[benjamin]

Opening day pitch in cincy?

[bobbob1313]

Opening day pitch in cincy?

 

That was great.

 

The Marlins offense has been great! 18 runs in 2 games. Can't beat that.

[MrRain422]

Opening day pitch in cincy?

 

Eric Davis looks like he can't even believe that happened.

 

Funny stuff.

[rareair]

scott olsen will kick ass this year. maybe getting thrown against the wall by your manager is part of the growing process.

[bobbob1313]

scott olsen will kick ass this year. maybe getting thrown against the wall by your manager is part of the growing process.

 

He's gonna be our ace for a long time.

[MrRain422]

Every player should probably be thrown up against a wall at some point in their career in order to release their maximum potential. It should probably be done in Little League, so no great talents get overlooked.

[bobbob1313]

Boy, if we could play the Nationals all year we'd be set. That team is bad.

 

We've hit 3 upper deck homers against them in this series. Good guys up 2-0 in the 2nd.

[MrRain422]

That's a huge ballpark too. I talked to my brother last night, and he was still in awe of a homer one of your Fish hit on opening day (I think it was Uggla).

[Basil II]

The Mariners have beat up on A's real good in the first two games........nice to see after Oakland's domination last year......

 

 

-Robert.

[bobbob1313]

That's a huge ballpark too. I talked to my brother last night, and he was still in awe of a homer one of your Fish hit on opening day (I think it was Uggla).

 

Uggla's was huge. But believe it or not, there have been further homers there.

 

There are apparently 3 white seats in the upper deck that show where Frank Howard hit home runs when he played there, and one of them is almost dead center and about 10 rows up from Uggla's. The Marlins' on field correspondent guy went up there and showed where it is and it's ridiculous to think someone hits it that far.

 

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/hp/content/lo...mbiet_0404.html

 

The buzz at the brand-spanking new Solid Gold Palm Beach is that the ladies there are going to miss their Florida Marlins, now that spring training in Jupiter is over and the regular season started Monday.

 

And not just because they behaved like true gentlemen.

 

For at least two nights a week in March, bar staff tells Page Two, star pitcher Dontrelle Willis, described as the ringleader, second baseman Dan Uggla and others were known to swing by the Riviera Beach joint and shower the gals with dollar bills until 3 a.m.

 

"There'd be, like, $3,000 in singles on the table," said waitress Nicole Spelling. "When they liked someone, a bunch of them would just go up and throw dollar bills in the air by the handful. There'd be so much money on the stage that the girls had to get champagne buckets to pick it up. And (pitcher) Randy Messenger is, like, so hot."

 

Spelling, 24, of WPB, was on the receiving end of the boys-of-summer's generosity at the new temple of tease, opened recently by former Miami Dolphins first-round draft choice John Bosa. One night last week, the single mom kept hearing from her 2-year-old son's baby sitter that the little tyke was running a 102-degree fever and vomiting.

 

"I was going crazy because I couldn't leave. There weren't enough waitresses and, frankly, I needed the money just to pay my bills," she said. "Next thing I know, Dontrelle hands me $1,000 from them all and tells me to go home to my kid. They got permission from management for me.

 

"I started bawling like a baby."

 

Now enjoying his wild nights with a bottle of Perrier after a December DUI arrest in Miami Beach, Willis didn't pick up the phone in his hotel room Tuesday in D.C., where the Marlins were playing the Washington Nationals.

 

Said Willis' agent, Matt Sosnick: "It's not newsworthy that baseball players are going to a strip bar during spring training."

 

 

Apparently the Fish were doing their best 'Lil Wayne impressions during spring break.

[bobbob1313]

The scorers in Washington are doing everything they can to make Ryan Zimmerman look good. He's had 2 definite errors today, only been charged with one. There was also one yesterday or the day before that could've been an error...

[parisisstale]

Great young talent aside, that lovely bullpen in Florida will keep the Marlins under .500 this year.

[bjorn_skurj]

The scorers in Washington are doing everything they can to make Ryan Zimmerman look good. He's had 2 definite errors today, only been charged with one. There was also one yesterday or the day before that could've been an error...

"Home field advantage."

[Willkoman]

Opening day pitch in cincy?

 

 

 

 

Edit: Thanks for posting.

[bobbob1313]

Great young talent aside, that lovely bullpen in Florida will keep the Marlins under .500 this year.

 

FUCKING JORGE JULIO!111

 

I'm going to make the Marlins GM a T-Shirt that says:

 

I traded a promising pitching prospect and all I got was the worst closer in the league.

 

I really think most of the bullpen is going to be decent, but if Julio keeps getting important innings, we're not going to fare well. But we've got some really promising young arms there (Messenger, Owens, Lidstrom, Tankersley) who can all be above average relievers. If our bullpen can be league average and we get leage average productioin from De Aza in CF, I think this is a playoff team right now.

[MrRain422]

Tigers bullpen was awful today. Hopefully not indicative of the season to come. 9-0 lead, and they end up eking it out 10-9. Phew! Up to .500 now and hopefully never looking back.

[redpillbox]

I would just like to say that the Mariners have already equaled their win total against the A's from last year. Is it too much to read a lot of hope into this statement?

[MrRain422]

The scorers in Washington are doing everything they can to make Ryan Zimmerman look good. He's had 2 definite errors today, only been charged with one. There was also one yesterday or the day before that could've been an error...

 

No, he's a Marlins fan and is trying to pad their hit numbers.

[bobbob1313]

I would just like to say that the Mariners have already equaled their win total against the A's from last year. Is it too much to read a lot of hope into this statement?

 

Unfunny Hyperbole

Somewhere along the way' date=' bad sportswriters got together and decided that simply making crazy overstatements or predictions counted as being funny. Sort of like the stand-up comedian who tries to skate by on being "outrageous" or "saying what you're afraid to say." I hate those guys.

 

This piece by Art Thiel from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer is the epitome of that unfunny hyperbole. It's not just the opposite of funny, it's profoundly weird and pointless that I'm almost scared it was published in a newspaper that people pay money for.

 

'Mariners must beat the A's, or it's over'

 

Already, you have to assume this thing is a joke, right? Unfortunately, it's an endless, endless joke that goes on for what seems like 10,000 words.

 

Forecasts for the start of any new Major League Baseball season are always filled with uncertainty.

 

Not this week in Seattle, pally. No nebulous knee-knocking here.

 

The entire Mariners season will be decided in the opening series against the Oakland A's.

 

It keeps going like this. Really.

 

'No need to wait until Memorial Day, July 4, the trading deadline, Labor Day or any other traditional seasonal milestones for measuring progress.'

 

'All are irrelevant in 2007.'

 

'Three games. Three days. Four possible outcomes.'

 

'If the Mariners sweep the A's -- Mariners go to the World Series.'

 

'If the Mariners win the series 2-1 -- A contending team with a real shot at the division title.'

 

'If the Mariners lose the series 1-2 -- Gather into the basement the elderly, the children and bring some bannock and hardtack.'

 

What is the point of this? Honestly? I can't think of a reason why anybody would continue to read on after this point in the column other than to keep copying and pasting sections of it into a sports media criticism blog.

 

'If the A's sweep the Mariners -- The cataclysm, as predicted in the movie "Ghostbusters":'

 

"Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies. Rivers and seas boiling. Forty years of darkness. Earthquakes, volcanoes, the dead rising from the grave. Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together -- mass hysteria."

 

You included an entire paragraph from Ghostbusters in your column about the Mariners?! Wait -- it gets crazier.

 

'Not to put too fine a point on it, or anything ...'

 

'If the A's sweep the biggest opening series in Mariners history, fans can save the cosmos some trouble by driving down Fourth Avenue South to Costco for the 45,000-pack of hara-kiri blades.'

 

'Oh-for-three, and Russian winter starts here Friday, broken by patches of morning eruptions from Krakatoa.'

 

I am starting to think that I am the one who is crazy. We're still talking about the opening series between the Seattle Mariners and the Oakland Athletics. This is a baseball column.

 

'Nothing has been more intensely urgent since the paternity line formed for Anna Nicole's baby. This team, in this circumstance, is the personification of the Rev. Leroy and the Church of What's Happenin' Now. No green-bananas outfit here, baby.'

 

Seriously. WHAT THE FUCK. I am scared. Art Thiel's family: if you are reading this, I think he is in trouble. Help him. He is not well.

 

'These Mariners are so in the moment that they nearly will be out of date before today's national anthem, which, by the way, better damn well be sung by Mick Jagger, accompanied by Yo-Yo Ma and backed by the New York Symphony Orchestra.'

 

'This is no time for KazooKlub.'

 

The joke band name he came up with was KazooKlub.

 

'Or don't you remember 2-17? That was the season-series result between the A's and Mariners last season.'

 

'It was the most lopsided series in the history of the American League since the start of divisional play in 1969, out-failed in MLB annals only by the 1974 Padres against the Braves and the 1986 Pirates against the Mets (both 1-17).'

 

'In an era of parity, that kind of disparity borders on the pathologically pathetic.'

 

Alliteration, see? FUNNY. Just like "nebulous knee-knocking" earlier. Art Thiel loves the English language.

 

'Last year, the A's were the organ grinder, the Mariners the monkey. The A's were George Bush, the Mariners were Tony Blair. The A's were Penn, the Mariners were Teller.'

 

Penn doesn't make Teller do things. They have a mutual respect.

 

'Not since Moe last frying-panned Curly have we seen such a cringe-inducing tribute to dope-slapping.'

 

Cannot parse.

 

'That's why this series is so important for the Mariners. The 2006 bleakness was so overwhelming that it must be stopped, starting this week, before it gets a chance to reproduce. Once the spores spread, all is lost, and Kansas City's Gil Meche will come to town and pitch a no-hitter.'

 

'I suppose some crank among the readership will say I'm exaggerating the importance of the series, reminding me that there will remain 159 games. Well, thanks for that, Alex Trebek. Let me save some time by having you talk to the hand while I explain.'

 

Mind spinning. Alex Trebek ref. "Talk to the hand." Where am I? Thirsty. Incoherent ramblings of an unfunny madman.

 

Insane people are usually funnier than this.

 

'This isn't just "Git 'er done," an expression so yesterday. This is "Git 'er done -- yesterday."'

 

Why is "talk to the hand" acceptable but "git 'er done," a much more recent execrable catch phrase, outdated? Is "so yesterday" an intentional Hillary Duff reference? This article makes me feel like vultures are eating my brain.

 

'Hey, Mariners players. No pressure. Deep breath. Relax. Cue the tinkly piano music from the background of the Masters broadcast.'

 

'Aaahh.'

 

'See the ball. Hit the ball. Catch the ball.'

 

'Beat the A's.'

 

'Or it's over.'

 

I skipped like six paragraphs where Art Thiel talked about cutting some minor league guys. Was that the point of the column? I don't even care anymore. Nothing -- not even cutting mediocre 24-year-old prospect Michael Garciaparra -- warrants the rampant insanity of the other 80% of the piece.[/quote']

[Nobody Girl]

I definitely like last year's A's-Mariners series better. But I'm still excited about tonight's game. It's the first one I get to actually watch this season (stupid work).