Baseball Toaster was unplugged on February 4, 2009.
Jon's other site:
Screen Jam
TV and more ...
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
It takes an effort to remind myself that home runs are a sidebar of baseball but not its purpose. Once the unlovable Bonds - still perhaps the greatest and most consistent long-range hitter I have ever seen, including Ruth - has done the deed, I trust that, like other habitues of the game, I will be able to find the right place for his record in my baseball consciousness, with whatever asterisks are needed, just the way I did with Roger Maris's sixty-one homers (struck in a longer season than Babe's sixty), and with the jumped-up rabbit-ball averages of the early nineteen-thirties, and even with the rare dead-ball home runs knocked out in the sunlit, bribe-prone, alcoholic, and racist baseball times of my father.
- Roger Angell, The New Yorker
* * *
And ... Brett Tomko on Brett Tomko, via Tony Jackson:
Tomko held court with us for several minutes in the clubhouse just now, admitting that the past few weeks have been "miserable." Said he is taking Sunday's start on its own merits, hoping he can go at least five innings, but is expecting nothing beyond that. He also said he can't see himself in a long relief role next season for the Dodgers or any other club. As for his recent struggles, he said. "It's pretty obvious how it has been going and how the fans have reacted. It wears on you. It hasn't been an easy situation. I feel like I have been throwing the ball decently and just getting poor results, so it's tough. I don't have a defined role in the bullpen. I just get in when the situation warrants or to eat up an inning or a couple. It has been a tough month and a half."
* * *
Tonight's game:
Update: Randy Wolf is likely out for "weeks," according to Ken Gurnick at MLB.com:
Wolf, who received an injection July 5, still has some inflammation from a shoulder impingement and hasn't thrown since a July 3 start against Atlanta. He won't even begin tossing for several more days, so he's unlikely to start a Major League game for weeks.
I call it a wash.
Talk about an unwanted place in history in an awful season...
True, but on the offensive side it is the most effective means to the true end.
Roger Angell will be 87 in September. He was 14 when Babe Ruth retired during the 1935 season.
Brett Tomko ... not only reiterated his dislike of being a long reliever, but also said he would be open to a trade that would allow him to start. Grady Little picked Tomko to start in order to get him in a comfort zone at AT&T Park and away from the boos at Dodger Stadium.
Who's the most desperate for starters? The Nats?
Won't the SF crowd boo the ex-Giant strongly too? I suppose it doesn't sting on the road anything like at home.
Will people even remember who it was?
Well, I guess so. They remember Al Downing. But heck, I can't even remember the three Dodger pitchers who gave up the record-breaking homers to Bonds in 2001. Chan Ho Park, Dennis Springer, and ... ?
But who remembers who yielded #62 to McGwire?
This I had to look up, but Eric Plunk is probably pretty happy that McGwire broke the record in 1998, because he gave up Sosa's #62 that year, days later.
You'd think the fine folks at Extra Innings would switch the Dodger game to one of the three channels not currently showing a game, but alas that is not to be.
Thus, I am stuck without a Dodger game, at least for a little while.
That is all.
What if they come wearing stirrup socks?
A half hour later, I hear him crying in his room. I go in and after settling him down get him to tell me what he is crying so much about: He says his team has a very tough game tomorrow and his teammates are counting on him to be there. "It's not their fault I didn't go to bed."
Oy vey. Parenting 101 certainly says you've got to stick to your guns, follow through on promised consequences, etc. But doesn't Parenting 202 say something about having compassion and rewarding good feelings? I was so proud he was worried about letting down his teammates.
So we decided he could go to the game and we switch to a punishment that only had consequences for him and not other kids.
Bonus points for sure for character for your son.
I congratulate Sam on not using Catholic school style discipline.
Spoke too soon! Double play ends the game. Bring in the Dodger game.
you mean no rulers across the knuckles?
sounds like a good solution.
Parenting in some cases seems like jazz to me-
accent on the improvisation.
Avg. OBP SLG OPS+ SB CS Pct.
.333 .379 .439 120 258 60 81.1
Great for a leadoff CF, and let's stipulate his fielding is more than sufficient. This is the current market value, perhaps, of $18 million. (Yes, yes, marketing, Asian jersey sales....) Is ARod worth $14 million - or more - than that?
too right.
Ya gotta just love 'em.
Sometimes, as a parent, I sound like a scat singer, "buh, buh, ... wha, who, why, Tom-, Jay-, Anna ..."
Being a kid who went to Catholic school in the 1970s, corporal punishment wasn't done. Instead, you got discipline where entire groups were punished for one person's misdeeds.
Let's say Jimmy's lunch is missing. The presumption is that Jimmy's lunch is stolen. So in order to get someone to cop to this crime, everyone else is denied lunch. Most likely Jimmy left his lunch at home.
Or let's say they find graffiti in the bathroom. The tab the oldest kids as the likeliest perpetrators. So the PE coach puts everyone through grueling exercise in order to get someone to talk. Of course, no one does. Who knows if even someone at the school did it?
What did this discipline accomplish? You punish people who deserve punishment. Anything else is pointless.
Corporal punishment in California public schools was still legal through the mid 1980s I have learned recently.
His voice is very similar to Ned's.
Lowe pitches tomorrow, Penny on Monday.
my wife relates tales of nuns that I'm not sure I should repeat, other than to say they were surprisingly (at least to me) hostile to women.
she went to Catholic school in the '70s, forgot to mention.
I would not shake that man's hand today if he offered. He was evil beyond redemption.
My daughter just graduated from Chaminade. Her experience there was much happier than yours.
Regardless, looks like he's dealing now.
75th pitch yields the fourth run for the Dbacks.
They've changed the administration there since I've left. They got rid of the assistant principal priest who drowned a bunch of feral cats he trapped for starters. And they've cut back on the anti-Semitism too.
Doesn't look very happy about it either.
http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/7021278
Not saying it was a good play but it wasn't as if Benjie been throwing out runners all year. Russell is at about 36% at throwing out runners this season.
My girlfriend's dad was a junior high PE coach. She said he wouldn't have done what my coach did.
Like Will Clark?
He's actually the Mashing Macedonian.
BOSTON -- J.D. Drew left the game against the Blue Jays [tonight] because of tightness in his right hamstring.
Drew doubled ... [in]the third inning and later scored. He was replaced in the field ... in the fourth.
(Another Easy Inning For Billingsley)
You know, if you join SABR, you can see the whole HR log for Aaron including the years that Baseball-reference doesn't carry.
LA: Kent, Gonzo, Nomar
SF: Bonds, Klesko, Molina
I'd just do it for one year because the membership expires on December 31 no matter when you sign up.
Cleveland.
No, but if you joined in October, you would get credit for 15 months.
No. He almost beat out a sacrifice.
The latest "Before the Bigs" curse victim.
Unlike most Dodger fans, who are treating Sunday's game with all the excitement of going to the doctor for a colonscopy followed up a wisdom tooth extraction without anesthesia.
You mean the Pierzynski Method of Baseball Acting. I heard James Lipton mention it once during an episode of "Inside the Annoying Actor's Studio."
Yet Vin has never referred to Rick Monday by his true first name.
Mine might be "pretentious".
It's fog.
Did you see that Nomar? That's how you get OFF the bag during the pitch when holding a runner on
Roger Clemens was outpitched, and the New York Yankees fell below .500 again.
Still, manager Joe Torre was convinced Friday night that the team is headed in the right direction in its bid to climb back into playoff contention.
"I learned through my years of doing this that even though everything is judged on winning and losing, it's the tenacity of the team," Torre said after Scott Kazmir shut down the Yankees for six innings of a 6-4 loss to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.
"You really have to let go of the final score because of a lot of times you can't control it. You can only control what you can control, and that's all based on effort," Torre added. "I have no trouble sleeping tonight, other than the final score."
Anyone know if a right-handed batter has ever hit it into the drink at the S.F. park?
And Ned Colletti's for not keeping Dioner Navarro as an adequate backup.
No righties according to the canonical list:
http://sanfrancisco.giants.mlb.com/sf/ballpark/splashhits.jsp
Jeff Salazar was intentionally walked in his first major league game, although not his first time up. That doesn't happen too often.
Millwood is the guy I wanted. We could have gotten him cheap when I wanted him 3 weeks ago. Now he's dealing.
That's respect!
Born in Brooklyn in 1973.
Broxton vs. Bonds in the 8th? (With two outs, I hope.)
Broxton vs. LHB in 2007: .197/.333/.237
Broxton's done pretty darn well against all comers.
or Beimel for two-innings, thus his entry with a double-switch.
Nor would you want to.
http://mvn.com/mlb-marlins/2007/07/13/dontrelle-willis-shelled-by-nationals/
http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/shareit/EUHW
He also got hit by a batted ball.
http://www.bb-ref.com/pi/shareit/wMTe
Does he have a search warrant?
Mattingsly stole two bases(10) and made two more errors(23).
I love the sound of San Fran silence.
I think he's trade bait or he makes Ethier expendable with Kemp taking over RF with D Young being the extra outfielder. Either way he's increasing his value with this awesome run he's had.
Loney's last 3 at bats have been impressive.
W00t.
They had 12 straight against the Cardinals in the 6th and 7th innings on June 23, 1930.
The Dodgers 12 straight hits were against Pittsburgh.
St. Louis is the other team with 12 straight hits and the Cards did it on 9/17/1920 against Boston in the 4th and 5th innings.
That game they also set their franchise "most runs in an inning" record with 15. In the 1st inning. Not a bad start to the game.
vr, Xei
http://www.bb-ref.com/pi/shareit/wmtK
http://retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1989/B08030CIN1989.htm
In the May 21, 1952 game, 19 consecutive Dodgers reached first safely in one inning. That's the major league record.
The title of my next album.
A win tomorrow will tie the 10-game streaks of 1974-75 and 1971-72. Longest streak is 13, in 1976-77.
http://www.bb-ref.com/pi/shareit/yMfc
Bonham played lead guitar. Plant relied on the triangle. Page played the flute. Total madness.
All contention is gone
And they're buying a treadmill
To oblivion.
Ooooh, and it makes me wonder....
Yeah, and it makes me wonder....
That these Giants are old
She's a fan and her name is Vivian
And her team, it blows
Against the Dodgers it shows
Another loss leaves them stuck in the basement
And she's riding a treadmill to oblivion.
God that was dumb.
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