Baseball Toaster was unplugged on February 4, 2009.
Jon's other site:
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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
For those who didn't read it yet, can you guess who is the only Dodger, going back to 1883, who can be argued to have been the best player in all of baseball at any given time?
Question: What do you get when you combine the 1966 and 2006 Dodgers' third basemen?
(in honor of Talk Like a Pirate day on Wednesday)
Could Tony Abreu count as the A-man at 3B too?
As I say this, I was wondering if we all were wanting to sign Zito as well, I know at least some folks were.
Absolutely 28
Apropos of nothing, looks like Red Sox nation can breath for another day.
Always wondered if they make the trip to the stadium, the cameras never show them.
Arizona, we hope to beat.
Allright Nomar!
About 30 munites ago, WE ALL AGREED to start every sentence with the letter A Gen3Blue, be a team player bro.
Alex Rodriguez can put us over the hump if Ned decides to ink him as a Dodgers for '08 & beyond
Kazmir and Santana were one behind Eric Bedard.
Santana whiffed 11 and Kazmir just 9.
A great idea is was to begin every post with A! I feel like Yoda.
[/sarcasm]
And why is Extra Innings showing the Blue Jays broadcast instead of YES? YES has permanent residence on Extra Innings I thought.
And I wonder if Jeff Kent glares at Loney for swinging on a 3-0 pitch. "Come on, whippersnapper!"
.890 season, .893 career
A triple next AB brings both to exactly .900.
See 111
Ahem...I was wondering if anyone noticed! Actually, it seems like we almost always leave the bases loaded.
About three times since Sunday.
OK, exactly three times since Sunday, not counting tonight.
Augie Ojeda MOVED to South Gate and still lives there? I think not.
end the 10th.
Let's go to the 11th tied in NY 4-4.
Augie Ojeda must know his South Gate streets cause I worked there & I have to agree with him, theres some REALLY nice homes in some South Gate areas
145 Allow it, I say.
144 Awesome idea. I haven't thought about Don Aase in ages.
Ahhh, shucks.
-Vin Scully, who surely would have posted that on tonight's thread if he wasn't busy being 19 years ahead of the curve.
A-Rod cannot be tempted with petty acrostic tricks.
Aaron, Tommie
Aaron, Hank
Aase, Don
Poor Tommie Aaron. Nobody ever thinks about him.
Btw, did anyone hear the DBacks announcers talking about Kent's comments just now? Mark Grace then said, "The difference between the Dodgers young players and the DBacks young players is that the DBacks guys all came up together, they all played together in the minor leagues." Huh, Grace? Guess he never heard of Jacksonville, or basically did any research at all before making that statement.
Manny Ramirez = Remain Mr. Zany
Anachronistic, but I never get tired of hearing it.
song in the USA 30 years ago this week:
Andy Gibb 'I Just Want To Be Yout Everything'
[insert inappropriate Bob Welch joke here]
C - Al Lopez
1B - Al Ferrara
2B - Andy High
3B - Adrian Beltre
SS - Arky Vaughan
LF - Andy Pafko
CF - Augie Galan
RF - Andre Ethier
SP - Andy Messersmith
SP - Al Downing
SP - Al Mamaux
SP - Aaron Sele
SP - Andy Ashby
CL - Alejandro Pena
RP - Antonio Osuna
RP - Alan Foster
RP - Art Decatur
RP - Alan Mills
Aye-ya.
Joba Chamberlain's dad's reaction to every
play. He's sitting in the stands with a toothpick in his mouth.
And to top it off, on the very next pitch Clark hit it out.
Absolutely none.
Leung, paraphrasing Matt Kemp:
"So basically the young guys don't want to win the game? We're busting our (behinds). We're used to winning, and we're not used to losing (in the minors). If you want to put the blame on the younger guys, I guess you have someone to put the blame on.
We're playing hurt. Our hearts are in it. We come to play every day.
It's not about age. Everyone wants to win - young or old. I haven't played with anybody that doesn't care about winning."
Anyway you slice it, Kent should have stat pat on his comments because people were gonna interpret them wrong, from management right down to the youth.
In the 2nd half of the season (from game 82 onward), Kent has tattooed the ball to the tune of .349/.406/.567.
Are there any things of interest happening tonight?
All people here know of Fred Toney and Hippo Vaughn don't they?
You'll see a kid make a base-running error. At the same time, you'll see a veteran make a base-running error, too.
c'mon give it a rest, the season is over and loiza sucks. nice pick up by the way, ned.
The message is: We really, really want to keep our first-round pick next year.
its not worth getting all heated up over.
Grady will hit for Loaiza if someone gets on, right? Right?
its a lost cause.
D'oh.
Also, what is the official name of the World Series trophy?
You may say Nomar simply didn't have the numbers to bitch, but I don't think he would have, even if he had the numbers.
Just saying the guy is worth rooting for. The Kent comparison just highlights this fact.
This matters because you root for guys, as much as you root for an abstract "team".
As a Sabbath fan, you connected with Ozzy, never Iommi.
A proposal: the World Series trophy should be named for one of: Babe Ruth, Abner Doubleday, or Kenesaw Mountain Landis.
ps: He said he wanted to win a WS... where the heck could Bonds even go where the team needs him and they're a player away from being the World Series favorite?
I wonder what it was called before 1921, then?
I think he may have transferred his impending doom to Broxton in the last few weeks!
Although, the directive did say we only had to go until it got annoying.
I was just checking in briefly, after getting a reminder of the fact that this game and this season basically suck.
297
Underdog, who's to say the Giants wouldn't be contenders with an Arod signing? They already have a pretty good rotation and with a few nifty trades, maybe some complements could be added. Hate to play devils advocate like that...
re: 303
A balance of goose eggs in San Diego.
About that Diamond Leung posting tonight, with Kemp's comments were also some from Grady:
>>I think he shares frustration with all of us. There's not too many of us that don't feel the same frustration.
It's been the most challenging (season) of my managing career because of that very situation (veterans mixed with kids).
You'll see a kid make a base-running error. At the same time, you'll see a veteran make a base-running error, too.
Everyone has their share of responsibility. I certainly do as the manager. I'm the one who makes the lineups. I'm the one who pushes the buttons and waits to see if it's the right or wrong button. I'm as much responsible as any player we got out there.
It's not enjoyable for us in uniform, for anyone in the organization.<<
Affirmative.
Any good news is worth noting.
Well, at least we have each other...that, and our ugly girlfriends.
again, I like Grady but awkward situations like that happen specially with a team in transition (great time to be a Dodger fan) we've all seen the youth CARRY THIS TEAM but you can also see Kent's "time is running out for me" mentality.
And with that, and the game once again out of hand and depressing, I bid you all good night.
Butts facing three years in jail for stealing toilet paper
A woman named Suzanne Marie Butts is facing a possible three-year jail term after being arrested for trying to sneak three rolls of two-ply bathroom tissue out of a county courthouse in Marshalltown, Iowa.
Courthouse employees had suspected a serial toilet-paper thief was at work for some time. Toilet paper appeared to be used up at "unusually high rates, even for county employees," according to the Marshalltown Times-Republican newspaper.
A court worker allegedly caught Butts, 38, red-handed, walking out of a storeroom with the tissue.
Although stealing three rolls of toilet paper is a minor offense, Butts' sentence could be enhanced as a result of prior theft convictions.
"She's facing potentially three years of incarceration for three rolls of toilet paper," Marshalltown Police Chief Lon Walker told reporters, adding, "See, I can't say it with a straight face."
R esplendent
O verdue
D ivine...victory for the Blue Jays.
Alas, no one reads the Griddle with its allusions to the works of Barry McGuire.
Or Yeats.
One of those two.
We really did have adequate pitching, despite the pitching injuries.
A lady at the BOB was rabidly waving a sign:
"We miss you Gonzo! Do you miss us?"
Unless the Mets blow a 9-4 lead.
A small, yet telling, sample.
Mulling it over, I think they can do this.
Sign A-Rod. Pay what it takes. Don't shy away from the Boras factor.
Package three attractive (meaning it will hurt to lose them) prospects to the Twins for Santana. LaRoche, Young, Meloan. Maybe Ethier instead of Young. It's got to look like a win for the Twins' GM or he'll go elsewhere.
Then, if Schmidt can come back, we've got a ridiculous five-man rotation, decent 'pen, and a lineup that can continue hitting all those singles and wait for A-Rod, Kent and Kemp to drive them in.
It wouldn't take anything more than that to make the Dodgers truly scary.
I say the Padres win on a walkoff triple by Marcus Giles.
Mainly because I don't like him.
C'mon get happy!
"A BOAT'S A BOAT, but the mystery box could be anything. IT COULD EVEN BE A BOAT. You know how much we wanted one of those."
The Dodgers have done this to me for almost 20 years. They've seldom gone into spring training with a team that had no chance. They seem to spend a lot of time in first place during many seasons. But when they crumble, it all makes sense in retrospect. There was something flimsy about the team, even the pretty good ones. You had heroic performances in one dimension of the game, and huge letdowns in the other. You had big budgets, but the sense that a lot of it was wasted on a player who's injured, who's playing very badly, or who is playing for another team at our expense.
Often, it was the lack of that one dominant player -- a Bonds, a Peavy, a Maddux, a Pujols -- that kept them from breaking through.
So maybe it's time to just go for it and go get a dominating player. If what we see in Kemp and Loney is realized, then we've got a murderer's row with A-Rod. Likewise Santana added to Chad, Penny and eventually Kershaw. Would it spoil some vast eternal plan if the Dodgers were a loaded team?
Leading off bottom of the 9th, down 1-0.
A team that's hot, for sure.
Now it's time for some Hu Fu, because the Dodgers have been mulitply aardvarked in this game.
Anger & jealousy happens!
Argh. He's horrible.
Later, when Santana resigns with LA after 2008: "Johan Coming Bach!"
And an 8+1 finish to the season!
Annie Hall?
Or something less distracting?
Alexander Nevsky?
All Quiet on the Western Front?
An American in Paris?
Although, I do see Almost Famous on the rack
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8Z-DIAthbM
Adios
KG16, 1988's Dodger team is hardly one I'd call "loaded"
Penny
Lowe
Bills
Loaiza
Schmidt
Bullpen
Meloan
Proctor/Beimel
Broxton
Saito
if Ned makes the right moves/& or signs A-Rod we should be very competitive for '08
it's been one of the knocks against the A's run of late.
My theory is that the best way to construct an offense is to gather as many line drive hitters as possible. While I'm not opposed to the home run, I think getting as many balls in play as possible is the best way to get runners on base, which is the best way to score runs. It would be effective in both the regular season and the playoffs, at least in theory.
And why didn't all those line drive hitters help the Dodgers win one playoff game last year?
Robles has the distinction of having the most SB attempts without a successful SB in MLB history.
http://www.bb-ref.com/pi/shareit/NnHH
All apologies.
As of right now the Dodgers Magic Number for the NL West is 1. Their Magic Number for the Wild Card is 3 pending the outcome of the San Diego game. So they could be eliminated from both races tomorrow should San Diego win tonight.
https://griddle.baseballtoaster.com/archives/814090.html
Well, it's just his first today.
This Kent-astrophe isn't going to go away any time soon:
from latimes.com:
L.A.'s clubhouse rift appears to grow as young players fire back at Kent, with Loney saying, 'Who said he was a leader?'
"Eric Gagne is a lifetime closer, that's all he knows. Also, Eric Gagne is one of the most competitive and conscientious players I've known. Now Eric Gagne is in a different role. You can go back and look at closers who are in a different role than a closer's role. Closers have difficulties in non-closer situations. This is not only true of Eric Gagne, but this is true of everyone involved. You can go down the list. I can name a lot of my clients who have had this problem.. . . But that did not stop Gagne from being in a winning environment. It did not stop him from maybe learning something new about himself and his career. And I admire him for that."
Lifetime closer? What about those 5 seasons when he started? Do those not count?
"The younger guys, we work hard, we play hard," Kemp said. "We're trying to make a name in the game for ourselves. The older guys, they've already made their names for themselves. We don't want to get that bad rap, that we don't want to win or we don't want to play hard, because you won't make it far in this game."
Loney said Kent has never spoken to him about any of his points of criticism.
Asked if Little had adequately managed the personalities on the team, Loney replied, "I don't really have anything to say on that."
506 - This is the Boras that described Kyle Lohse as the second coming, no?
Said Kemp: "If you take the younger guys away, do you have a team?"
And is Juan Pierre an Ewok?
"It appears the Dodgers have a whole bunch of gutless players short on accountability, showing no desire to take the blame for falling short of expectations, while instead pointing to Forrest Gump over there in the dugout...
He's a very easy target, all right, but what an embarrassment, what a disgrace. What losers to point to their own manager as the failed leader while failing individually to produce with everything on the line."
"But was this horrible letdown season Little's fault?
He was given one-armed pitchers in Jason Schmidt and Randy Wolf, Juan Pierre to make the jump from Little League to the majors in center, Wilson Betemit to start at third and his choice of Brett Tomko or Mark Hendrickson to round out the rotation. Then, when things got really tough, he was given Shea Hillenbrand."
...and is this really a clever way for Jon to purge commenters again?
Ach, but who will get to count all of the streaks in this thread up? (coughcough, Ken, cough)
Aww but nobody else noticed Justin Ruggiano's first major league at-bat was a strikeout by...Eric Gagne?
Alas, I would post pix but I am on dialup (and will likely be several thousand comments behind anyways) for the next few days...am I going to miss R, O, and D -only threads too??
512 - Abbott, Jim would likely glare evilly at the tone of that "one-armed pitchers" remark, no?
He does, however, have a point re: A Martinez and his sources. I hope those unnamed players own up to their responsibilities in the clubhouse, and not just anonymously vent to the press.
It seems like there was some areas where better communication could have helped out.
Again, all of this may not affect wins or losses but it doesn't help the perception of a divided clubhouse.
Did they discuss how messed up the parking is going to be at the Rose Bowl if it rains this hard all night?
They'd get the same treatment if they did the same thing as Kent. But they didn't. Kent lashed out at his own teammates unprovoked. Loney and Kemp were defending themselves from what they perceived to be unfair personal attacks. Two very different things.
Personally, I'm glad someone stood up to Kent. And the fact that Loney and Kemp won't take any [rule 1] from anyone is good, in my book.
Doesn't that give you the warm and fuzzies?
Russell Martin, you're up!
To borrow a line, there are going to be "consequences and repercussions" from this meeting, I can't imagine what they will be, but I know they're coming.
I just don't see what difference any of this makes.
I don't even think it will make a difference in the long-term.
Does anybody else really really really want to see this lineup next year?
Iwamura 2B
Crawford LF
Upton CF
Pena 1B
Young RF
Bonds DH
Guzman 3B
Longoria SS
Navarro C
??
They could probably hit, however.
I get kind of irked because I don't like all the disharmony. It reminds me of 2005 all over again. Maybe it's nothing. Hell, maybe this can be some sort of unifying force for next season.
You know it's been a bad year when your main concern regarding the rest of the season is wondering what species of fish Bob will portray the Dodgers as.
That's highly classified information.
Well, not all that highly classified as I already have the page ready to go in case I had to activate it Saturday night, but that won't happen.
A fan of "Perspectives"?
I'm anxious to see what the endgame is in the Fish Fiasco™ over on The Griddle, to see what replaced Abe Vigoda!
No, he just expressed some frustration and did not specifically identify anyone, to me it seemed more of a general comment.
Again, communication is a two way street and 15-16 years is a pretty big gap.
I don't post this stuff because I am taking sides, I just think there are always two sides to each issue.
Any truth to the rumor that the contest winner will get this book?
http://tinyurl.com/2thj4n
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