MLB 2007

[MattZ]

When a pitcher is throwing a no-hitter, I often see TV cameras pan the dugout and see that the pitcher is sitting completely by himself on the bench. To the point that it is almost laughable. No one goes within 10 feet of him. I suppose it's possible that the team does this on a nonspeaking basis, but still, the fact that the pitcher is throwing a no-no is certainly acknowledged by the players in the dugout.

 

Obviously, I don't sit in MLB dugouts so I dont know what happens, but either way, I have a hard time seeing why people would get all bent out of shape about fans mentioning it. As a fan, I'd want to know so that I could tune in. Nothing is more fun than rooting for a pitcher in the 8th and 9th innings to get a no-hitter.

 

Of course, I am a Mets fan, and they are notorious for never having had a no-hitter. Maybe I am (part of) the reason why.

[Sir Stewart]

Thats the problem with boards with a lot of users. You get alot of idiots.

[MrRain422]

If it's any consolation, David Eckstein will be in our infield next year. It's almost like his destiny or something. Imagine what a tear-jerking moment it will be when the Eckstein-Erstad connection reunites at the top of our lineup.

 

Congratulations to the Kansas City Royals for their fourth place finish in '08.

[Lammycat]

I don't think anyone is suggesting it has a direct or even indirect impact on the outcome of the game (mentioning a no-hitter while it's happening). It's a fun superstition that most baseball fans get a kick out of acknowledging, respecting, and adhering to.

 

As an event unravelling before one's ears/eyes that doesn't happen frequently it's fun for fans (me, at least) to be able to take part in the superstition in a very small way. When people mess with the tradition (even via live game threads on message boards) it takes a little away from the moment, is all.

 

The guys on the bench and the guys calling the game acknowledge by not acknowledging it, yes. But the respect for the superstition is still there. Obviously the pitcher knows what's going on and notices the distance from the players and knows he's in the throes of it, but by giving him a lot of room and not speaking to him it's an implicit means of allowing him utter concentration.

 

Schilling posted and mentioned at the end of the game thread yesterday that he was pretty sure he was going to get the no-no after the first out in the 9th. He was not overtly disappointed in not getting it but was very pumped about his performance.

 

FWIW, I've read that the guys calling the game via radio yesterday were mentioning the potential no-hitter regularly from the 7th inning on....

[Sir Stewart]

FWIW, I've read that the guys calling the game via radio yesterday were mentioning the potential no-hitter regularly from the 7th inning on....

That's exactly what I was going to mention as I was reading your post - Joe Castiglione was flipping out, barfing up stats about no-hitters related to age, the teams, how far Schilling had previously gotten, etc.

I assume the superstition thing does not extend to radio broadcasters?

[jenbobblehead]

i'm just amazed that Schilling was about to throw a complete game more than i am about a potential no-no. When was the last time he made it that far?

[caliber66]

Three complete games in 2004.

[tongue-tied lightning]

has shill ever had a no-no ?

[PigSooie]

has shill ever had a no-no ?

No.

[Lammycat]

has shill ever had a no-no ?

No. And Schilling called off Varitek's call for a first-pitch slider and went with a fast ball instead. I believe that is how Pedro's no-hitter didn't happen, as well (shaking off the called pitch from Varitek).

[caliber66]

No. And Schilling called off Varitek's call for a first-pitch slider and went with afast ball instead.

Yeah, but he also shook off the slider call to the previous batter and induced a groundout.

[Sir Stewart]

"What if"

[Lammycat]

Yeah, but he also shook off the slider call to the previous batter and induced a groundout.

I'm not suggesting this is the sole reason Stewart got the hit, just making an observation. Schilling probably shook off signs up to a dozen times yesterday and managed just fine.

[Sir Stewart]

I'll take the blame for this - I shouldn't have changed my name back.

[caliber66]

Also, if Julio Lugo hadn't booted that ball in the fifth, Sir Stewart wouldn't even have batted a fourth time. Of course, if Julio Lugo hadn't played guitar at the high school dance after the original guitarist sliced his hand letting him out of the trunk of that car, his parents wouldn't have gotten together and he never would have existed in the first place.

[Sir Stewart]

Good point, and that scene always struck me as racist - when Chuck Berry's "cousin Marvin" calls him - making it look like Chuck Berry got his whole schtick from a white boy. Fuck that movie.

[cryptique]

Salon.com's King Kaufman today on Sheffield's comments:

 

King Kaufman's Sports Daily

 

Gary Sheffield is the latest to get shouted down for racial comments. Thing is, he seems to have had a point.

Jun. 08, 2007 | So now that we've ridiculed and vilified and slapped down Gary Sheffield for his supposedly racially insensitive comments in GQ magazine, is it safe yet to wonder if he had a point?

 

GQ asked the Detroit Tigers outfielder about the dwindling number of African-Americans in the major leagues, and he said the reason Latins have replaced American blacks as baseball's chief minority is because they're easier to control.

 

"Where I'm from, you can't control us," Sheffield said. "You might get a guy to do it that way for a while because he wants to benefit, but in the end, he is going to go back to being who he is. And that's a person that you're going to talk to with respect, you're going to talk to like a man.

 

"These are the things my race demands. So, if you're equally good as this Latin player, guess who's going to get sent home? I know a lot of players that are home now can outplay a lot of these guys."

 

The machinery kicked in, as it always does when any public figure says anything about race that wouldn't be heard at a meeting of the Can't We All Get Along and Pretend We've Conquered Racism Society.

 

He's insulting African-Americans! He owes an apology to every black person in America for saying that blacks aren't coachable or won't take instruction! He's insulting Latinos! He owes an apology to every Latin American in the Western Hemisphere for saying they're docile!

 

Sheffield gets something of a pass because he's black, and blacks can go further than whites with off-the-reservation racial commentary, but also because he's Gary Sheffield, who has been blowing hot air publicly since the early '90s.

 

It's never a bad bet that Sheffield's more or less full of it, but when he clarified his comments a few days later, it became apparent that he actually was trying to say something worth hearing, though he wasn't saying it very well.

 

"They have more to lose than we do," he said after expressing surprise that his original comments had caused a stir. "You can send them back across the island. You can't send us back. We're already here. So there are a lot of factors involved you look at. I'm not saying you can tell them what to do and it'll be 'yes sir' and 'no sir.' I'm just saying from a grand scheme of things."

 

Hmm. So whatever it is Sheffield is struggling to say, it's not fitting into a one-sentence sound bite, or if it is, Sheff's not the guy to make it fit. And it's pretty clear he's missing the biggest reason why Latins -- and, in a process that's really just starting, Asians -- are replacing American blacks in the majors, which is economic.

 

As Torii Hunter of the Minnesota Twins pointed out Thursday in a Fox Sports Radio interview in which he supported Sheffield's comments, international players aren't subject to the amateur draft.

 

"You can go to Latin America and get that same talent as a black player in Compton, and if he's in Compton, he gets drafted in the first round he's going to get $2 million," Hunter, who is black, said. "If he doesn't pan out, you're out $2 million, but if you go to the Dominican [Republic], Cuba or whatever, and you can get a guy for $2,000 and he doesn't pan out, you're only down $2,000."

 

An oversimplification, but essentially true. Chris Isidore of CNNMoney.com spelled it out beautifully just before Jackie Robinson Day: Though the draft limits the bargaining power of amateur players in this country, it also makes the international market more efficient for teams.

 

They can open an academy, develop players and sign the best of them without other clubs even knowing the kids' names. Open that same academy in Compton, say, and you're one of 30 teams with a chance of drafting the kid you want.

 

Combine that with the expense of playing youth baseball, and the economic reality of the United States, which is that blacks are generally poorer than whites -- even though, don't forget, racism has been conquered and people should stop bringing up race all the time -- and you have a system that funnels international players, mostly Latin Americans, and nonpoor American kids, who are mostly not black, into the pros.

 

But Sheffield was talking about how Latins can be controlled, right? Racist nonsense, right?

 

"I'm happy he said it," Sheffield's teammate Carlos Guillen told the Detroit Free Press. "I'm glad somebody spoke up." Guillen is from Venezuela.

 

"In my first year, in rookie league, I hurt my elbow and I played DH," he said. "In my first at-bat, I hit a double, and I missed first base. I was out, and they screamed at me. I didn't know what to say. If I had said anything, they would have sent me home. I was afraid to talk.

 

"That happens to every Latin player. They are afraid to talk."

 

Guillen then practically echoed Sheffield: "Black guys are different because they are already here at home," he said. "They understand what they [the people in charge] say, and they know what to do. They know the rules. We don't know the rules. So what are you going to say?"

 

Several Latino players have noted that teams provide translators to their Asian players, but no such courtesy is afforded Spanish speakers. So far, Asian players have mostly been fairly advanced pros, not amateur kids, and therefore not as likely to be pushed around even if they don't understand what's being said. Daisuke Matsuzaka isn't worried about getting sent home.

 

Free Press columnist Michael Rosenberg writes that former Tigers great Willie Horton told him he was shocked when he visited a minor league facility in Florida in 2001 and found Latino Tigers farmhands living in substandard conditions with no money, constantly afraid of being shipped home. "I gave them money for toothpaste," Horton says.

 

Those conditions have improved, Rosenberg writes, "but the attitude hasn't really changed. Compared with their American-born counterparts, Latino players are like migrant workers. They deal with lousy work conditions because the alternative -- going home, often to a poverty-stricken area -- is so unappealing. On every rung of the ladder, they are afraid of getting sent home. Yes, this makes them 'easier to control.'"

 

So can we agree that Sheffield wasn't just talking nonsense, that he was trying, without really succeeding, to get at an important issue?

 

Better yet, can we agree to actually for once listen when someone's talking about race, so that we can hear him if he does have something worthwhile to say? Can we agree to stop shouting down every person who dares to say anything about race beyond bromides about respect and dignity and harmony?

 

Because once we stop shouting and start listening, the damnedest thing happens. A conversation starts.

[caliber66]

Several Latino players have noted that teams provide translators to their Asian players, but no such courtesy is afforded Spanish speakers. So far, Asian players have mostly been fairly advanced pros, not amateur kids, and therefore not as likely to be pushed around even if they don't understand what's being said. Daisuke Matsuzaka isn't worried about getting sent home.

I think that probably has a lot more to do with the fact that you're gonna have one Japanese player on a team and as many as a dozen Latinos on a team. If there are nine other guys around who speak Spanish (most of whom speak English, too), why do you need to provide an interpreter? If you're the only Japanese player on a team, how are you going to communicate if there's not an interpreter?

[bjorn_skurj]

Crying in baseball!

 

Zambrano says he and Barrett are past dugout slugout

ESPN,.com news services

 

Pitcher Carlos Zambrano said he and batterymate Michael Barrett shared some tears when the two Chicago Cubs teammates reconciled after their dugout fight last week.

 

"He came to me the next day, and he apologized and I apologized to him and we cried," a teary-eyed Zambrano said after he beat the Milwaukee Brewers on Wednesday. "I still love him."

 

Zambrano finally spoke to reporters Wednesday about the two men making peace, after refusing to comment about the reconciliation for days.

 

Barrett and Cubs manager Lou Piniella had earlier spoken about the situation. Zambrano did, however, publicly take the blame for the fracas last Saturday.

 

It all came to a head last Friday in the top of the fifth inning against Atlanta. The Braves had just scored five runs to increase their lead to 7-1; during the inning, Barrett allowed a passed ball and threw wildly to third for an error.

 

Zambrano was seen pointing at his head and yelling at the catcher in the dugout before the bottom half, while Barrett pointed toward the field. There was shoving and some slaps.

 

Zambrano cocked his right fist as the two were being separated. Piniella said Zambrano was upset about the passed ball, and the manager along with several players walked the pitcher back to the clubhouse. Piniella told Zambrano to take a shower and go home, then returned to the dugout.

 

Moments later, a clubhouse attendant could be seen telling Piniella something. Derrek Lee jumped up and headed into the tunnel, and Piniella and pitching coach Larry Rothschild followed. Barrett wound up in a hospital for a split lip afterward and both players were fined by the Cubs for their actions.

 

Now, all is forgiven -- and when Zambrano's next turn in the rotation comes up Monday against Houston, Barrett will be his catcher.

 

"And I don't have a problem with that," Zambrano told reporters. "I told you I didn't want to talk about that, but I'm still a friend of Michael Barrett. He still calls me 'brother,' and I still call him 'brother.' We forget and forgive each other, and we're back on track. ... We've moved on, and we're here for this team."

 

Barrett concurred.

 

"It was over the moment it happened for me. There were no hard feelings," Barrett told reporters. "I totally understand how things like that can happen. And like I said, I love him enough to move forward."

 

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.

[MrRain422]

Yeah, the translator stuff doesn't really seem all that relevent, but there are a lot of good points made otherwise.

[jenbobblehead]

if you want to play baseball in the US of A then you learn to speak American, pronto!

[Duck-Billed Catechist]

Unless you're Japanese.

[bjorn_skurj]

Man. It's like Garrett Morris never even existed.

[jenbobblehead]

Unless you're Japanese.

i'm actually surprised that the japanese ball players don't know english that well or at all.... Just about every japanese person i've ever met speaks better english than the average RIer.

[Sir Stewart]

Man. It's like Garrett Morris never even existed.

Berry much so.