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
My take on Saturday's Coliseum exhibition game can now be seen at SI.com.
Nearly 115,000 people have bought tickets to see a baseball game. An exhibition baseball game.Which goes to show you: For all the hoary clichés about the poetry of baseball, when it comes to something brilliantly weird and trippy, fans can't wait to get their taste.
Two weeks after taking baseball to another continent with a pair of exhibition games against the San Diego Padres in China, the Los Angeles Dodgers are participating in another bold journey: taking baseball back in time. On Saturday, they will step out of their beloved Dodger Stadium habitat for a pretend game at their original West Coast home: the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, a venue ill-suited for baseball then and iller-suited now.
And with the transcendent lure of bad traffic, bad parking, bad seats and utter meaninglessness as far as the standings go (even though the regular season will have already started for the Dodgers' opponents, the Boston Red Sox, in Japan of all places), more human beings will venture inside the Coliseum peristyle than have ever been to any single baseball game.
"This is more of an event than it is a game," Dodgers broadcaster Charley Steiner said. "It sounds a little grandiose, but it is kind of like a baseball Woodstock. ..."
Update: Joe Torre makes an impression on a lot of people, but I'm not sure anyone could articulate that impression as well as Eric Neel has for ESPN.com.
Bob Timmermann, please pick up the white courtesy phone....
I say 8 consecutive posts. The streak is able to last that long due to James "Abba Zabba" Loney's new nickname.
If you want to look at Nascar as a sporting event (sorry, but I am definitely not a fan), they do 110,000 pretty much every weekend at the superspeedways. I know that they pack em in like sardines at the Kentucky Derby as well.
The University of Tennessee can get well in excess of 105,000 for Vols games on any SEC weekend.
1) it is an exhibition, so we won't see the best players necessarily
2) the Coliseum field will have absurd dimensions, so we won't see a game played under normal conditions
3) the large mass of people, particularly those way up or way out, will no doubt not be focused on the game (more so than a usual game)
But:
1) I've never seen baseball played in such circumstances
2) I'll be there with my Dad
3) It is still the Dodgers
4) I think the "make a day of it" idea is great (Fan fest, open batting practice, etc.)
...I'm glad that I'll be there.
If you think the air in LA is bad now, you should have lived here back then.
I'm about to go to work for an electric bike company so I'll be doing my part to keep the smog levels low. Plus I'll soon be helping the Dodger Poster meet the triple dare of one Bob Timmermann.
vr, Xeifrank
And there's also a fun story in the NY Times on Saturday's game:
http://tinyurl.com/2rpo5c
And, bless his heart, you have to admit this quote from Pierre is pretty amusing:
>>Juan Pierre thought someone was. Pierre, the Dodgers' probable left fielder (rather, deep shortstop), said he did not believe the dimensions when he was told of them a few weeks ago. He gradually feared for his safety.
"I'll be like 180 feet from the hitters, and those Boston guys hit the ball pretty hard," Pierre said. "I might have to wear a cup."<<
TC, you must be old enough to remember the Times artistic depiction of that, back in the mid 60's.
They showed three fans, very, very large (goes without saying), and if I remember right, they exhausted into the SF Valley!
The home bench will be 180 feet from the batter's box?
There's a wonderful panoramic photo of the record-setting game:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nrmnbates/2364978292/
Wait a minute, I thought the giant fans idea was from a Beverly Hillbillies episode for Jed to invest in. A west coast and t.v. version of selling the Brooklyn Bridge. Please tell me I'm falling for your joke about a Times article.
Anyway, Huber's a decent backup outfielder, I suppose.
Of course, at that time, the Times still had `Ripley's Believe It or Not' in the comics section :)
Kansas 33.8%
UCLA 22.9
Wisconsin 11.1
Memphis 9.8
North Carolina 6.0
Louisville 3.6
Washington St. 3.1
Texas 2.6
Stanford 2.4
Xavier 1.3
Michigan St. 1.2
Tennessee 1.0
West Virginia 1.0
Davidson 0.1
Villanova 0.03
W. Kentucky 0.02
I liked the nameless backs.
Carry on.
Real stuff, I think they did a contest to come up with the best way to remove the smog from Los Angeles. I'm sure if we motivated Bob he could dig up the dirt but I think he's hiding under his bed worried about the repercussions of having his triple dare met.
I'll second that.
Compare this...
http://tinyurl.com/22tl8f
...to this:
http://tinyurl.com/29n5pv
If somebody beats me in the Griddle contest, I'm going to sue this "Pomeroy" for an Oregon State t-shirt.
http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2008/03/finally_la_sewers_get_som.php
I wonder where "spend billions on retooled refnineries, reformulated gasolines and car engines" ranked in the contest. Having grown up alongside the 10 in West Covina, I can attest to what's really a pretty incredible success story about improved air quality with so many more people and machines. I'd check on the brown cloud rolling in from downtown around 11 am. How thick it was determined whether we rode our bikes hard or easy all afternoon in order to be able to breathe at night.
The Dodgers go 91-71, based on Furcal bouncing back and major contrtibutions from Kemp, Ethier, Loney and Martin, and from the 4-5 slots in the rotation, which allows the bullpen to be effective despite a downturn by Saito. Minotaur is not called up until September. Druw loses the everyday job in center and becomes part of a $22.1 million platoon. Torre gets tired of always having to change the line-up, so he just has JP batting clean-up against righties. Kent displays PVL-but off the bench (where he can stay closer to the garbage can), and he and Sweeney become PH terrors.
Bill Bavasi does a pretty good job of that himself.
1) Two potential Cy Young Award candidates, each of whom had a troubling injury last year.
2) Three starters who should count their lucky stars if they even perform at a league-average rate, and
3) A closer who, while outstanding, was plagued by arm trouble last year, had a BABIP-lucky season, and is due for an extreme regression to the mean.
Of all the Vegas over/unders, the safest bet by far is taking the under on Seattle.
I saw it. I liked how neither of them could name a player in the McDonalds All American Game.
Frankly, there's no reason to think they can. Their Pythagorean record was 79-83, which basically means that nine of their wins were due to sheer dumb luck. Their true quality was that of a 79-win team. Teams who get lucky like like that, almost without exception, regress to the mean the next year.
So you take a 79-win team, make its veteran core, all of whom are past their prime (Ibanez, Ichiro, Johjima, Vidro, Beltre, Sexson) each a year older, and add an ace pitcher in Bedard, and what do you get? Probably another 79-win team, if you're lucky.
i don't like their team either but considereing their pathag was 79 wins last year and they add bedard how you'd be surprised if they finish over .500. obviously i could see them finishing under .500 also but i wouldn't be surprised either way.
And yes, there was a time when Brentwood was 25 minutes away from Dodger Stadium.
http://tinyurl.com/39m8z3
PS - Bob, you are a right, SI Vault is great.
1) Arizona is composed largely of players under 27 who can be expected to improve slightly each year. Seattle is composed of players older than 27 who can be expected to decline slightly each year. So in '08, Arizona could theoretically improve enough to actually be a legit 90-win team, instead of a 90-win team that just got lucky.
2) Arizona's Pythagorean differential was partly a result of the extraordinarily unusual composition of their bullpen. Basically, they had no average relievers, -- they were all either really, really good or really, really bad. Thus the guys pitching in mop-up situations skewed their run differential greatly, which is something that very rarely happens.
I don't buy that, they were 14th in the NL in runs they were just really lucky.
http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/no-mirage-in-arizona/
I believe that Sports Illustrated was the premier destination for sports writers, Frank Deford, Robert Creamer, Peter Gammons, Rick Reilly, and several others wrote great articles and are now classics. (In fact, it never dawned on me to ask Jon, but it must be a kick to be associated with SI, if you had the same experiences that I did with the magazine).
An SI subscription was an automatic Christmas present from my Mom for me and my two brothers for years.
I don't get the magazine anymore because there is so much more information available online now that it's not as relevant to me.
But, I'm using the vault right now to read the May 1981 Bill James article that brought him to a national audience. Thank you, Daniel Okrent.
I went through a period last fall thinking it had gotten a little shallow for my taste and wasn't worth renewing, but I got cold feet and did so. 30 years of it arriving weekly in my mailbox is too hard a habit to break.
52 Bonus prediction:
Clayton Kershaw was called up from AA Jacksonville on May 25 to mixed results. He struck out a batter an inning, but also allowed too many walks and threw too many pitches.
The most intriguing statement I've heard during spring training was Clayton Kershaw saying he learned over the winter how to slow down his delivery which has greatly improved his control (which brought to mind another famous Dodgers left hander). If that's really a true statement we should be seeing the evidence fairly early this season.
Back in the 60's there was a bit of rivalry between SI and SPORT magazine. SPORT was not as well written, but kind of fun - like a choice between the Times and the old Her-Ex.
One of my memories of being at a Dodger game in 1958 at the Coliseum includes the persistent cloud of blue haze hanging over the crowd from all of the cigar, cigarette and pipe smoking. I'll be there on Saturday night with my youngest son. I'm taking a transistor radio with me so I can listen to Vinnie - just like the old days.
The head line is: GAME ON....
THERE'S A NEW GENERATION OF STARS
Then pictures of Ryan Braun, Jason Upton, Troy Tulowitzki, Jacob Ellsbury, Clay Buchholz, Ryan Zimmeran.
I'd wager that by the end of the year they will look dumb for not having any of Kemp, Loney, Martin, Billz on their cover.
Gee, I wonder which site you are talking about that pushes SI when you get an upgrade.
(What do you mean you don't have one?)
http://tinyurl.com/39pzkk
But I still subscribe to the magazine. There's some chaff and some wheat.
The bullpens for Saturday will be on the third base side of the field. There is a lot of foul ground between third and the seats.
Just remember, if the Dodgers would have signed Hochevar in 2005, they wouldn't have drafted the Minotaur in 2006. That makes 2005 easier to swallow.
I mean, I know they're Red Sox, so that automatically gives them automatic SportsCenter Top 10 status, but really.
I for one don't think Buchholz will hit as many HR as Kemp! :)
They're picking the Dodgers to finish 3rd behind the Rockies and D-Backs.
http://tinyurl.com/2ov7yu
80 the BAD boys (as they had been named by DodgerThoughts reader ibleedbloo –Bison, Andrew, Dre-).
I like BAD boys. :-) We'll see how that plays out this season.
Dodger Thoughts is the only place where people seem to care about my feelings.
Which is very amusing.
Wasn't Clark Griffith the father-in-law of Joe Cronin?
1. Bruce
2. Braun
3. Upton
4. Tulo
5. Zimmerman
So, caught the radio broadcast this week against the Brewers and was really surprised about how bad the broadcast team was (or is it ST for them as well?). I now understand the heat they get from this site. Really took the joy out of it.
I'm just happy he's working on other pitches, hopefully he didn't get discouraged by Saturdays results.
By the end of their careers I think it will look like this:
1. Upton
2. Bruce
3. Tulo
4. Zimmerman
5. Braun
I have no idea how 3-5 will shake out but I will be surprised if Justin Upton is not the best player in the NL over the next decade even if he struggles this year. When you think of Maybin, Rasmus, McCutchen, and Ellsbury it was just loaded with centerfielders which is good for the game since the position has been weak for several years.
You're making $9mil/year guaranteed.
Put a smile on your face and say you'll do whatever helps the team. Like Tommy says,
You play for the name on the front of your jersey. Not only will you gain affection in LA, you might further your career. You might find yourself in the playoffs instead of at home in October if you get salary-dumped to a below-average team that might actually play you.
>> During spring training this year, ESPN and ESPN2 have shown eight exhibition games, and six involved the Red Sox or the Yankees, while one other featured the Mets. <<
http://www.presstelegram.com/sports/ci_8697801
Perhaps DeJesus/Bell can save it, but it doesnt look good at all right now.
How much value does defense in Lf and 1st base really hold? Those are arguably the two easiest positions to play.
Sexson's a disaster bc he forgot how to hit.
New Orleans just won another game in the final 7 seconds on a Chris Paul assist to David West, 100-99 as they beat Cleveland in Cleveland.
Byron Scott is doing a great job with the Hornets.
Why? Its not like he was a first round pick.
Shuey, Quantrill, and Martin are all available! :)
Sorry if this was mentioned earlier but I just read that Chan Ho Park made the team (as a long man)
Where did you read that, Blue? I haven't seen it anywhere.
http://tinyurl.com/2422ky
Whether it's James Loney, Chin-Lung Hu or Blake DeWitt (all of whom have been completely dismissed as hopeless at some point at DT, and I would add James McDonald's name, but before this last year, when he was age 22, I'm not sure anybody here realized McDonald was alive, or cared), some people never seem to learn: we're not drafting major-league-ready, or close-to-major-league-ready, players, but (in most cases) teenagers with a lot of potential and a lot of work to do and, yes, some struggling, as they find their feet. Let's not be so quick to write off young players who don't light the world on fire right away.
I am also fairly confident his absolute walks and pitch counts will not be too high.
How did the failure to sign Hochevar lead to Kershaw? The Dodgers drafted 7th that year, which was their slot for being so awful in 2005. Or are you saying that with one stud pitcher in the fold, we wouldn't have gone after another in 2006?
I think it's likely that if Hochevar wasn't in the 2006 draft, Kershaw wouldn't have been available at the 7th position in the draft.
I don't know/remember the details, but I remember reading something like what I wrote in 150 somewhere on this website in one of the comments a while back. Hopefully someone can back up what I've just said.
http://tinyurl.com/36turw
The Tigers liked both Kershaw and Andrew Miller, and were targeting Kershaw with the #6 pick since Miller was expected to go #1. But when the Royals took Hochevar #1, that left Miller for the Tigers and Kershaw to fall to the Dodgers.
Logan White has said that if the Tigers took Kershaw, he would have taken Bryan Morris at #7 and Mattingly in the spot where Morris was taken. Which would have made that draft an unmitigated disaster for us.
Estonians are very nice people.
He tends to paint around the edges of the strike zone when the score is close.
When he has a lead of three runs or more he tends to pound the stike zone and his pitch counts per inning go down quickly.
We'll see if that holds up this year.
Tim Lincecum went 10th that year. He would've made a nice consolation prize if we'd missed out on Kershaw.
I'm stuck working - can anyone tell me how Derozan is doing in the AA game?
Not much yet.
But no one in the West is doing much. Jennings has just been trying to be Mr. Flashy and get all the attention.
It is pretty clear that White pays no attention to consensus rankings or opinions. He just drafts who he wants.
He really should not get much playing time, so why would you expect him to get a lot of RBIs. He is injured now and by May it should be LaRoche's job.
B.J. Upton???? Whyy????????????!!!!!!!!
Are you upset that you made a good pick?
True.
What's so bad about that? .300/.386/.508 last year with 22 SB. He's entering his age 23 season, qualifies at both 2B & OF.
Phoenix lost by 20 in Boston. Yay!
How can you blame someone for not watching Til Death?
Good point. Also:
Carnac: [blowing on envelope] Til death
Ed McMahon: Til death
Carnac: [looking at Ed with disdain] How long one must wait to hear a game score from RIck Monday.
They are 6-28 on the road this year.
Lakers seem to play great in the 1st half against the good teams, and great in the 2nd half against the bad teams.
Hopefully they put together two good halfs in the playoff.
I'll be there with the Catfish hat on, and will be at the game as well. I cant beat parking at my school's parking lot. Check it out as you walk/drive in.... right on the corner of Fig and Expo.
I think my grief was over selecting him too early, but looking it over, I actually selected him at the right time.
Anyone interested in my fantasy lineup?
http://www.newsday.com/sports/baseball/mets/ny-spmnotes0327,0,65786.story
Lay it on us.
I agree with you. I like the Yankee young guys more than the Red SOx and I like the Dodger young guys more than both of them. I don't think it is really that tough of a call.
Starting Lineup for Logikreader's Fantasy team:
1B Garrett Atkins
2B B.J. Upton
3B Aramis Ramirez
SS Hanley Ramirez
C Joe Mauer (just missed out on Golden God!)
OF Vlad Guerrero
OF Pat Burrell
OF Adam Dunn
Utility Man
Jim Thome
Bench
Jacoby Ellsbury
Kelly Johnson
Evan Longoria
Starters
Chris Young
James Shields
Matt Cain
Chad Billingsley
Ian Snell
Tom Gorzelanny
Gil Meche
Relievers
Francisco Rodriguez
Joe Borowski
Kevin Gregg
Jonathan Broxton
If Jones just has one of his average years, Ethier, Kemp, Loney, and Martin assert themselves at bat early in the games that Penny pitches, then we'll get to see how much the pitch count goes down :)
vr, Xei
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/eticket/story?page=torre&lpos=spotlight&lid=t
The last few games had a line-up with a nice left, right, left right combo (Furc,Kemp,Loney,Jones) at the heart of the order, although Loney may not be the perfect clean up guy.
vr, Xei
They just took the nite off.
Maybe they dont want to play Golden State in the 1st round.
Matt Kemp, feisty as ever! :)
The Western Conference is bunched up enough that the seeds are kind of fluid right now. I could see Golden State and the Lakers matching up at 2-7 or 1-8.
I have to start three starters, then two relievers, followed by three Pitching slots that can go either way.
It's a lot of slots :)
Solid team, but Borowski may kill your numbers at the expense of saves.
What a pitiful performance tonight... You never want to say things like this but: the Lakers didn't bother to show up.
Xei, I thought the same thing. Maybe they're subconsciously trying to avoid GS in the first round.
Since I've been a Dodger fan, the managers' personalities have been, in order: taciturn, grandiose, unsure, invisible, self-important, baffling, homespun, and now introspective.
The GS comment was for JoeyP, not Xei. Oops
Actually, the Lakers would probably love a Golden State match-up. The Lakers have essentially no bigs right now, and STILL managed to compete with Golden State on the boards. Bynum and Gasol would be far too much for that team.
Fortunately, I can put Borowski on the bench and let Kevin Gregg close unless there's an injury.
He does nothing on the court.
Unathletic, with no shooting skills to mask the deficiencies.
He should have been let loose like Cook, Smush, and Kwame were.
Wins: 4 pts
Ks: 11 pts
ERA: bad
WHIP: bad
Saves: 5 pts
vr, Xeifrank
Thanks for the quick breakdown, Xei. In this particular league, we use OPS instead of Avg. It's unorthodox for fantasy baseball, but I like it.
vr, Xeifrank
There are just seven teams in our league. Sam DC and his son also have teams.
Here's the actual categories we use in this league:
Hitting
Runs
HR
RBI
SB
OPS
Pitching
Wins
SV
K
ERA
WHIP
vr, Xeifrank
I know, huh! Oh but if only it was rotisserie... This is an H2H league.
https://mikesrants.baseballtoaster.com/archives/930620.html
I was imagining earlier today,what a spread it would be, Joe Torre standing in front of every MLB award that he has won as player and coach.
The man is a winner.
So why did every pick this year to get upset about the MLB opener in Japan? People didn't react with high dudgeon the other two years. But this year it's considered a travesty?
I don't get it....
Everyone wants to see Jack Hannahan.
That Eric Neel ESPN piece was wonderful, and who knew Neel was a Sinatra fan?
On the wild side of things, one of my leagues and teams:
12 teams
Roster Positions: C, C, 1B, 1B, 2B, 2B, 3B, 3B, SS, SS, OF, OF, OF, OF, OF, Util, Util, Util, SP, SP, RP, RP, P, P, BN, BN, BN, BN, BN, DL
Stat Categories: R, H, HR, RBI, SB, BB, K, TB, AVG, OBP, OPS, IP, W, L, SV, BB, K, ERA, WHIP, H/9, BB/9
C Russell Martin
C Kurt Suzuki
1B Todd Helton
1B James Loney
2B Yunel Escobar
2B Aaron Hill
3B Chipper Jones
3B Kevin Kouzmanoff
SS Jimmy Rollins
SS Cristian Guzmán
OF Carl Crawford
OF Matt Kemp
OF Ken Griffey Jr.
OF J.D. Drew
OF Randy Winn
Util Akinori Iwamura
Util Brad Wilkerson
Util Cliff Floyd
BN Elijah Dukes
SP James Shields
SP Derek Lowe
RP Takashi Saito
RP Brandon Lyon
P George Sherrill
P B.J. Ryan
BN Chad Billingsley
BN Hiroki Kuroda
BN Matt Garza
BN Brian Bannister
DL Yovani Gallardo
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