Baseball Toaster was unplugged on February 4, 2009.
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1) using profanity or any euphemisms for profanity
2) personally attacking other commenters
3) baiting other commenters
4) arguing for the sake of arguing
5) discussing politics
6) using hyperbole when something less will suffice
7) using sarcasm in a way that can be misinterpreted negatively
8) making the same point over and over again
9) typing "no-hitter" or "perfect game" to describe either in progress
10) being annoyed by the existence of this list
11) commenting under the obvious influence
12) claiming your opinion isn't allowed when it's just being disagreed with
Andruw Jones, Jeff Kent and Gary Bennett all homered off Ben Sheets in the seventh inning. Who's for real?
Six runs scored in support of Chad Billingsley's seven innings of shutout ball. Billingsley ends up allowing a run in the eighth inning of a 7-2 victory.
* * *
A fun story about baseball in France comes from Geraldine Baum of the Times:
It's still not a game children play in the garden or during a barbecue. As is regularly noted, if you hand a French child a baseball, he'll immediately drop and try to kick it. (Of course, that's how the 1962 Mets played, and they won a World Series a few years later.)
On a typical spring weekend when the Cougars are on the field, there are only a few dozen spectators in the stands, and often the strapping players mix with the desultory crowd, wandering over to the snack bar for a square of vanilla flan or a waffle delicately sprinkled with sugar. ...
Even when the championships for the top-level teams (equivalent to Class-A baseball in the U.S.) were played in Montigny, they drew only 100 people to the 230-seat stands.
It's puzzling if only because baseball seems in so many ways like a sport the French might like:
It's leisurely and permeated with romance, much like French cinema, and leaves plenty of time for analysis and hearty eating in the bleachers. And in the American imagination, baseball is so tied to what feels like the very French notion of terroir, which can be translated as territory but refers to a cultural attachment to the land. Baseball is rooted in a pastoral culture of summertime in the country with people cheering as much for a team as for the spirit of their land. ...
Go Rockies tonight!
Also, in none of the previous 4 games did a Sheets opponent score more than 2 runs in an inning, let alone 3 HR.
2-1
2-1
0-3
1-2
2-1
0-3
1-1
1-1
3-0
3-0
2-1
2-1
0-3
2-1
We need a sweep this weekend to balance those books.
*Ducks
Or, at least point out that fact.
In 1987, SI picked the Indians to win the World Series. That year, Cleveland was the very worst team in baseball.
7 I don't see anything strange with that distrubution.
14 Post Hoc reasoning alert!!
In fairness, I did write: "What seems likely is that Kent will have reassuring little bursts of offense here and there to disguise his mediocrity ..."
http://tinyurl.com/5fcs66
For instance they've been struggling to win games against the Astros, Mets, and Padres in the last five years. I mean when does a team look at this and say "this is ridiculous! Let's go beat these guys!"?
The Red Sox had 86 years of that before the '04 team just said "forget this, let's go play!"
The Mets is a bad example because in 2007 the Dodgers beat the Mets in LA and lost to them on the road. In '08 so far, they were close to a sweep until Bad Penny botched the third game.
I don't happen to think that 15 HR amid a .700 OPS with poor defense will qualify as "decent."
Sorry, my last Tigers Thought: They have played 40 games this year and been shut out 8 times.
Kent and Jones begin to hit, this team will start scoring runs at a more consistent basis.
Done!
Theres no credibility to that claim though is there, has there been any report from denver about him possibly leaving yet?
http://www.fangraphs.com/livewins.aspx?gameid=280515116
He hit into an inning-ending double play in the fourth, and struck out with the bases loaded in the seventh. Great start, Jimmy.
Yahoo Rumors comments always scare me as another sign of the breakdown of our society. There are always astute ones sprinkled in there of course, but many of them are an embarrassment. And Yahoo Rumors themselves more often than not turn out to just be laughable.
From the episode that also gave us the line: "Sad songs are nature's onions."
Still does not come close to the Buzz Bissinger tirade on Steiner's XM show last week. He dropped the word in that post but a whole lot of other ones that possibly could have made Tommy blush.
i.e. they aren't being serious.
I had to spend some time on Yahoo Answers this month for a work project, and it made me want to cry.
"He replaced his shoes. He replaced his helmet. He replaced his uniform pants and would have replaced his jersey if the Dodgers had an extra one the correct size."
What a shock!
In that game the Astros hit 3 home runs in the 8th and 9th inning to take a 1 run lead against the Giants' intimidating bullpen.
"Torre chatted with Bobby Thomson in the Brewers dugout before the game."
Noooooooooooooooooooo
The same.
Joe Morgan and Jack Clark, however, those are another story.
Sheesh, there are some bone fragments in the Olduvai Gorge that I'm angry with.
http://tinyurl.com/44jvrj
"New York Mets. No obvious need, at least as long as Moises Alou is healthy."
Bwahahhahahahahahaha!
Basically, Neyer thinks that the Minotaur should pitch a few more months in the minors.
2) There have been a lot of questions regarding my time at the Dodgers that I haven't published. I am simply not permitted to speak about anything relating to the Dodgers. Sorry. I didn't want you thinking that I was blowing off all of those questions.
http://www.yelp.com/biz/kalakaua-plate-lunch-honolulu
If you didn't go to Rainbow, then you were never on Oahu, except maybe to change planes.
The burger joints are Teddy's in Waikiki, Kua Aina on the North Shore [i.e., the one in Haleiwa and not the one in town], and W & M BBQ Burger on Waialae Ave. Please note that W & M is a family joint, and so they close shop at 4:30 p.m. I can forgive them for closing early, what with the way they dip that burger, both before grilling and just before the flip, into their secret sauce... Note to self, it's only 2:30, there's still time...
http://www.yelp.com/biz/kalakaua-plate-lunch-honolulu
Was that the one where you asked how LoDuca could be traded in the middle of a pennant race?
http://www.yelp.com/biz/rainbow-drive-in-honolulu
I don't know why he wouldn't want to answer...
http://tinyurl.com/62xwhf
I don't have any citation to the first point but I believe I have heard it mentioned over the years.
And in that vein ... So, San Francisco isn't going to the playoffs after all?
http://tinyurl.com/5m2qc5
including Sheets
Not so fast my friend!
I'll link to the package that I'm editing on the fall scripted shows once it's live on the web this weekend.
Set for release August 8: "The Perfect Game," based on the true story of a ragtag team of tykes from Mexico that was the first non-American team to win the Little League World Series in 1957. The team stunned ballpark fans when they won 13 straight games, the last a perfect game.
Originally called "The Third Miracle," pic stars Clifton Collins Jr., Cheech Marin and Louis Gossett Jr.
I guess that 1-0 lead for Arizona in the first is insurmountable.
I really think Andruw Jones dinger was for real but his SWING (to me) looked like a HALE MARRY type job. I think Bennett's HR was the mirage.
1. If you had to do over again would you still take the Dodger job (I suspect not)?
2. If you were still the GM what would be diffrent about the current Dodger team.
I also told him I thought it was ironic that a perceived "poor communicator" was taking the lead on an innovative approach to communicationg with his teams fan base.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_Itself_(TV_series)
108 I also like how the Giants bullpen, to paraphrase that line in "Go" about Family Circus, is: "there, in the corner, just waiting to suck."
http://tinyurl.com/5zhozm
excerpt:
>>A veteran baseball scout leaned back in his seat behind home plate at Dodger Stadium recently and considered the two first basemen in town, two young players who bat and throw from the left side, who share discerning hitting eyes and soft hands, who were chosen in consecutive amateur drafts in the middle of the first rounds, who carry themselves as though they allow the game to carry them.
James Loney, wearing the blue of the Los Angeles Dodgers, was wearing out the left-center field gap in batting practice. In a few days he'd be in Anaheim for the Freeway Series, where he'd alternate at first base with Casey Kotchman of the Los Angeles Angels.
They come from baseball stock, from fathers who reared them on the game, and they arrived in the big leagues as comfortably as that, with pretty swings and nimble feet and broad shoulders.
"The thing they both bring to the table is first basemen with great baseball instincts," the scout said finally. "You don't find a lot of first basemen with superior instincts. Both turn hits into outs. They make good throws across the diamond. They're both real good ballplayers.
"They look the part and play the part. They're growing up here."<<
Wow, talk about a couple of homonyms. This would be one of those hearty, healthy weddings, then?
Saturday's game is on main FOX. So again no Vin. Finally on Sunday, it should be on KCAL with Vin, as well as on FSN West with Angels guys. Even if Lakers lose tomorrow, the 7th Lakers playoff game will be Monday, not Sunday. So KCAL/Vin on Sunday will stick.
I guess on Friday and Saturday Vin will be on the radio for 3 innings, followed by Steiner? I assume Vin goes to Anaheim? Has anyone tried radio/TV together this year? From what I recall, the 7 second radio delay was removed mid-season last year. Has it stayed gone?
The little Mets fan in all of us.
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