Monthly Archives: May 2010

Weekly Hit Ground Ball: A pair of perfectos

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WhgbHlSqIt’s the final day of May and all baseball fans will be sorry to see the month end.  After Ubaldo Jimenez gave us a no-hitter in April, Dallas Braden and Roy Halladay turned this month into one for the ages as both pitched perfect games.

Logging on to MLB.com on Sunday morning, I did a double-take when I saw the news of Halladay’s perfecto against the Marlins the night before.  Following Randy Johnson’s perfect game against the Braves in May 2004, we waited just over five years before Mark Buehrle pitched the eighteenth perfecto in MLB history last July.  Less than a year later and that number has gone up to twenty. 

Perfect games are so rare that there will always be an element of surprise and wonder about them, but Halladay’s effort was slightly more predictable than many others because his dominating stuff and tendency to pitch deep into games makes him a candidate to pitch a no-hitter most times he takes the ball.  Continue reading →

Mother In Laws, DVDs and False Teeth: The Dangers Of Baseball

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After Kendry Morales injured himself this week celebrating after a game-ending grand slam this week’s column had to be my top 10 baseball player injuries.

10. The Atlanta Braves outfielder Terry Harper injured himself by getting a separated shoulder when he high-fived a teammate.

9. Kevin Mitchell always seemed to be injured throughout his career but the most famous is the donut gate incident in which he missed several games.  He broke his tooth when he bit into a frozen chocolate donut that he had put in the microwave for too long and had turned hard.  He needed to have root canal treatment on the tooth, which was later replaced by a gold tooth.

8. If you ever need a reason not to visit the mother-in-law and you are a major league baseball player then David Cone has come up with an idea.  He missed a start after being injured by his mother in law’s Jack Russell Terrier.  You do have to wonder if he had his hand in the Terrier’s mouth so that he could say that the coach ordered him to keep away from his mother in law’s dog.

7. Marty Cordova decided he needed to look good while out on the field and the only thing a baseball player can do is take a trip to the tanning salon.  However, after spending a bit too long under the lights he ended up burning his face. He was told under doctors’ orders to stay out of direct sunlight for a few days.

6. Adam Eaton decided that instead of spending a relaxing evening watching a DVD he would instead take a trip to the A & E.  The accident that caused the injury was Eaton stabbing himself with a knife trying to open the DVD.

5. The shortstop Jason Bartlet tore a nail off one of his fingers while sliding his hand under the television in his room while staying at the Ritz Carlton hotel in Detroit. Apart from anything else we have to ask why he was sliding his hand under the TV in the first place?

4. I am not sure if it is the curse of the shortstops or the curse of the Ritz Hotel but Juan Castro hurt his neck on the pillows at the same hotel that Jason Barlet hurt himself.

3. If you  where thinking that these baseball players have it too easy and thought that Castro was soft for hurting himself on some pillows. Then Larry Anderson proves it beyond a doubt when he strained a muscle while getting out of a Jacuzzi.

2. Ken Griffey Jr makes it up for baseball players around the world when he missed a game after his cup fell and trapped a testicle. I am sure many male readers are asking why he was not out for the whole season with an injury like that.

1. Red Sox Rookie Clarence Blethen came up with a bright idea of taking his teeth out and putting them in his back pocket when he was pitching because he claimed it made him look meaner. The problem was he forgot to put them back in while he was batting. He promptly slide into second base and bit his own butt.

What this teaches us is that being a baseball player is a risky business, off the field as well as on.

Live MLB Blog: 20.00 BST Sunday 30 May

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Welcome to the first live blog here at BGB.  As noted in my intro post yesterday, this is a new feature and today’s event is something of a trial run.  I hope this will turn into a regular part of our content, be it live blogging specific games or, as with today, just commenting on the live games as they happen while discussing anything else that comes to mind.

One update from yesterday’s post is that I’ve found a way to insert the CoverItLive window into the website, as you’ll see below!  All you need to do is click on the button once the live blog has started and you will be able to follow the conversation.  Feel free to join in by submitting comments via the CoverItLive window (not the comments box at the bottom of the post). 

Once the live blog is over (probably 22.00 BST) then the window below will become an archive section where you can read back all of the comments.  So if you can’t make it tonight, or have to leave part way through, you can always come back and read it again.  I’ll re-write this post then to reflect it being ‘after the event’ .

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Out of Left Field: To Hull and Back (with added squirrels, sickness and snappy dressing)

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MlbHlSqSo, did you miss me? I may have missed last week’s column and been late with this one, but rumours of my demise have been greatly exaggerated. Those rumours are perfectly understandable though, if anyone discovered that last week your fearless correspondent had ventured to the wilds of Hull. You should have seen what I encountered. Oh, the shaved heads! Oh, the tattoos! Oh, the language! Oh, the fights! And that was just the women. Boom-tish.

Ah, not really, Hull was perfectly fine, but your correspondent, after one too many shandies, was not.

However, I’m sure none of you are interested in a rambling booze-addled travelogue, and are rather eager to satisfy your thirst for the absurd and the weird and the wonderful in that great old sport of baseball. Well, drink upon these stories, dear reader (or not as the case may be)…

Our beloved leader, Matt Smith, knows that as a Mets fan I am something of a connoisseur of the delightful behaviour of those lovely fans of the Philadelphia Phillies. So, Matt was kind enough to forward on to me the story of a Phillies fan ending an altercation with a man and his daughters, aged just 15 and 11, by vomiting on them. What an incredibly classy, classy guy. I guess it is a reasonably foolproof way of bringing an argument to end though. Hopefully he was feeling suitably nauseous this week as the Mets shut out the Phillies for 27 innings straight. Of course, Mets success never lasts that long with two losses since (to date), and Phillies failure never lasts that long either, what with the small matter of that perfect game, and pretty soon another Phillies fan will be vomiting on another family.

Wildlife corner folks! How about that squirrel that brought a halt to the Yankees/Twins game this past week? How cute was that? The squirrel went after Twins third baseman Brendan Harris, before seeking shelter from the rain that would eventually halt the game again. As Matt again pointed out, at least the squirrel wasn’t in Philadelphia, or a policeman would have tasered it!

I love writing for this site. The head honcho supplies stories and writes my gags for me! Brilliant! Or is it a sign that he thinks this column needs some work? We’ll gloss over that, eh? But anyway, thanks Matt, really appreciate it. And if any of you out there spot any funny stories or think of great gags, you let me know. Let’s make this a joint effort, and then your intrepid correspondent will have more time for ill-advised trips to the north!

Fashion corner time! And the sartorial elegance award has to go this week to the San Diego Padres, who went all retro on us with their uniforms this week, for ‘Throwback Thursday’. Looking good guys. For a sport so in touch with its history, and so in thrall to merchandise, you’d think (and maybe hope) that MLB roll this out further. We could have the 1970s Astros play the 1940s Cardinals, or the 1920s Yankees against the 1980s Angels. Time-travel baseball – let’s make it happen! It would surely appeal to baseball geek and baseball hipster alike. It’s fun. Plus, it has the potential to make multi-millionaire sportsmen look silly. What is there not to like about this idea? Nothing, nothing, I tell you.

And finally, a word of advice. Should any of you hit a walk-off grand slam this week, please, please be careful. You don’t want to end up like poor Kendry Morales, who broke his leg celebrating following his trip around the bases. He leapt up at home plate, and came down just a little bit funny and SNAP. Ouch. That has to be the worst sporting celebration injury since Arsenal’s Steve Morrow’s broken arm following the 1993 League Cup Final. So, please, take care, and I’ll see you all next week, further trips to Hull permitting…

Live MLB blog: Sunday from 20.00 BST

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I’ll be launching a new feature here tomorrow evening.  It’s not getting a particularly big launch because a) I’ve only just decided that I’ve got the time to do it, and b) I’m not sure quite how it’s going to work, so starting slowly might be for the best.

I’m really pleased at how BaseballGB has moved from being an occasionally updated blog back in 2006 to being a website built around a group of regular features and columns.  However, one thing that we don’t do quite as much as I think we could is commenting on things as they happen.  I do this on Twitter, but that’s not quite the same.  So, I thought it would be a good idea to introduce a ‘live blog’ element to the site. 

The one live blog I’ve written in the past came in June 2008 when I kept track of the first round of that year’s amateur player draft (all 3 hours of it!).  It was a lot of fun to do, but it was a bit fiddly in terms of constantly going in and editing the post, while asking readers to refresh the page every 5 minutes or so.  Despite enjoying the experience, the ‘logistics’ of it made me put the idea on the back-burner.

Thankfully, those logistical problems have now been erased courtesy of CoverItLive.  This is a brilliant application, increasingly used by many different organizations and websites, that makes live blogging easy to write and easy to follow. 

I thought I’d start by focusing on my favourite part of the baseball week: Sunday evenings.  With lots of live games to comment on and a week’s worth of news to reflect on, it should make for a good time for all.   I suspect that it will mainly be me writing to myself this time around, but if you’re about then why not join in the fun and post some comments?  The blog will be available to look back on immediately after the event.  I’m not sure whether I’ll be able to do this every week, and it might make sense to switch things about a bit (i.e. sometimes picking a single ‘early’ game to focus on etc), but we’ll see how this first one goes and take it from there.

The only slight difficulty is that this site runs on WordPress, which is one of the few platforms in which you cannot embed the CoverItLive window directly onto the page. So you’ll need to click here to open the live event in a new window

Saturday’s early MLB games: King Felix vs Weaver, CC vs Indians and more

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We’ve got five early games today, including CC Sabathia facing a former team and a marquee match-up from the AL West.  All times are in BST.

18.05. Cleveland at NY Yankees (David  Huff – CC Sabathia)

CC faces his former team for the third time coming off the back of a disappointing outing against the Mets last Sunday.  The Yankees won the series opener last night, riding a Robinson Cano grand slam in the seventh inning to take the game 8-2.

18.07. Baltimore at Toronto (Chris Tillman – Brett Cecil)

They may be ‘the other two’ in the AL East right now, but this should be a fascinating encounter.  Chris Tillman is a highly touted prospect, bringing a sinking fastball and excellent curve alongside a decent change-up. He got hit about a bit in his twelve Major Leaugue starts last year and began this season in Triple-A, but his star still burns very brightly and he looks set to be called up to face Toronto today.  As for the Blue Jays’ starter, Cecil is in very good form and shutout the Angels over 7.1 innings in his last performance.

21.00. Seattle at LA Angels (Felix Hernandez – Jered Weaver)

It’s a marquee match-up from the AL West as two aces collide in Anaheim.  Cliff Lee struck out 10 over 8 innings as the M’s won the opener last night 8-3 and Seattle have altered their rotation so that King Felix will follow Lee’s outing.  That’s the 1-2 punch that made many expect great things from the team this year, but Lee spent the first month on the Disabled List and Hernandez hasn’t quite been his regal self lately.  Lee is now back pitching brilliantly and if Hernandez can start to dominate teams like he is capable of doing, the M’s fightback could be on.

21.10. Texas at Minnesota (C.J. Wilson – Carl Pavano)

Another chance to catch a game being played at the beautiful new Target Field.  The Twins edged past the Rangers 2-1 yesterday, but both offences are capable of putting up big numbers on any given day.  Wilson has been an effective addition to Texas’ rotation this season, although his last two starts have been something of a struggle.  Pavano took a loss last time out against the Brewers, giving up two homers but pitching eight innings.

21.10. St. Louis at Chicago Cubs (Adam Ottavino – Carlos Silva) * ESPN America

The latest series in this long rivalry began yesterday with a 7-1 win by the visiting team.  The Cards waffled Cubs starter Randy Wells for five quick runs, sending him back to the showers without recording a single out.  With Chris Carpenter pitching well for the Cards, the Cubs never recovered and it was a routine win for St. Louis.  Chicago will look to bounce back today with the 6-0 (yes, really!) Carlos Silva.

All the above games can be followed via various resources on MLB.com (Gameday, At Bat with Gameday Audio and MLB.tv), while ESPN America is broadcasting the Cardinals-Cubs game live from 21.00. A complete schedule of MLB games can be found on MLB.com

Pat Doyle appointed as Head Coach of the Great Britain Senior National Team

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GbHlSqGreat Britain’s preparations for this summer’s European Championships have been boosted by the appointment of Pat Doyle as the new Head Coach of the Senior National Team. 

Doyle is a highly respected coach who brings a considerable amount of experience to the role.  He has coached in the U.S. college system for over 23 years, been part of the Team USA coaching staff and has served as the Global Coordinator of the Major League Baseball Envoy Programme for the last twelve years.

Doyle takes over from Stephan Rapaglia, who led Team GB to the unprecedented achievements of a silver medal in the 2007 European Championships and a second-round showing in the 2009 IBAF Baseball World Cup.  Rapaglia is a tough act to follow, but he has every confidence that Doyle is the man to take the team forward.

“We are very fortunate to welcome Pat to the GB programme”, said Rapaglia. “Pat is an extremely well-respected coach with a wealth of high-level experience and, frankly, we couldn’t have hoped for a better fit”.

Doyle will now put together his assistant coaching staff for the European Championships, which takes place in Germany between 23 July and 1 August.  Continue reading →

Web pick of the week: Baseball Musings

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Web-PickThis week’s web pick is a long overdue acknowledgement of one of the best baseball blogs around. 

Baseball Musings is run by David Pinto and every day the site’s RSS feed is one of the first things I check because it’s guaranteed to produce links and commentary on stories worth following.  

The full-time blogger updates the site at a tremendous rate.   There were 26 entries posted on Tuesday just gone, for example.  They started with posts about David’s day-by-day database and Evil Player program, before moving on to stories ranging from Stephen Strasburg’s Major League arrival timetable, highlighting all the interesting moments from that day’s games and recommending a new blog to visit.  

I picked out Tuesday’s selection because that was the day I looked at Baseball Musing’s RSS feed and thought: ‘I’ve somehow never chosen that as a web pick’. It was therefore a funny coincidence that David highlighted my post about Stephen Fry’s GB tweet on Wednesday.  So there you go, it’s a great blog and it even occasionally links to BGB.

What more could you ask for?!

Roundshaw Hop: Early-season statistical leaders

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Roundshaw-Hop-(128x128)The 2010 National Baseball League (NBL) season should see teams playing the most games since 2005; its 28-game schedule pits all competitors against each other in home and away double-headers. So with teams having played between eight and 12 games at this stage, the season is still in its early stages. Nevertheless it is worth having a run down of how the category leaders for the various statistics are currently looking. In addition, it’s a good time to have a recap on some of the statistical highlights accomplished in recent weeks in the 2010 NBL season. Continue reading →

British Baseball Beat: ‘Baseball weather’ at last

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bbbHlsq‘Baseball weather’ arrived properly throughout much of the UK last Sunday.  Some would say baseball weather here means howling winds and driving rain, but don’t let the MET Office fool you.  The equation of baseball + sun + hot dogs and beer equals a good time in any country.

The hot dogs and beer normally have to wait until after the games if you’re playing (normally, but not necessarily) and the final score (or scores) determine whether they toast a win or two or if they offer a tasty end to a disappointing day.

What role did the post-game spread play for which teams last Sunday? Read on to find out.  Continue reading →