Tuesday, May 15, 2018

WHAT'S NEW?

The Yankee's powerful new lineup finally asserted itself over the last three weeks going 19-3, with an .864 winning percentage. They've done it with a lot of injuries to both the pitching staff and position players. That's the good news. The bad news is that streak was necessary to catch the Boston Red Sox, who are also sporting a powerful lineup. Should be an interesting summer with these teams having the best records in baseball.

On the other hand, if the AL East is called "The Beast," the AL Central is probably "The Least." The division leading Cleveland Indians are the only team without a losing record and they're only at 20-20, .500.
Speaking of the AL Central, congratulations to the last place Chicago White Sox, who won on Sunday, finally giving them double figures in wins. They are now only 8.5 games out of first.

The AL West boasts three teams on a pace to win 93 games or better. Only 1.5 games separate the top three teams. Maybe MLB should institute a rule that a team has to have a better-than-.500 record to be allowed in the postseason. If there are going to be just 5 teams in the playoffs, we shouldn't have one of the teams be an embarrassment and prevent a good team from participating.

In the NL, the Mets are playing .500 ball, but not lately. They're in fourth place behind the Braves and the Phillies (the Braves and the Phillies?) Last week, Yoenis Cespedes broke a diamond necklace while running the bases. So take that all you people who say the Mets can't put diamonds on the field. The Mets recently dumped former star Matt Harvey because of poor performance (they said). He refuse to go to the bullpen saying he's a starter, not a reliever, then went out and proved it by giving up 7 hits and 7 runs in four appearances. The Mets also suffered the embarrassment of batting out of turn in a game. That's happened to other teams before, but in the first inning? Don't they paste the lineup on the wall of the dugout?

I don't understand...
**Ken Giles of the Houston Astro's was so upset over his performance against the Yankees that he hit himself in the face as he walked off the mound. Twice!  Based on his poor outing, I guess he missed the first time.
**During a mound visit by the manager and the trainer to Aroldis Chapman of the Yankees last week, I noticed they also brought an interpreter. The guy has been in the majors for EIGHT years and he still doesn't speak English? I wonder if the catcher has to give the signs in Spanish, too.
**The Supreme Court ruled that New Jersey's law prohibiting betting on sports is not constitutional and ESPN ran a big story on how being able to place bets on sports will change your life. What planet are they living on. It's now 6:15 AM here on the east coast and I can place a bet on anything within the next 10 minutes. The only life change for me will come when the government figures out how to tax my bets.
**Why do sports announcers say that nobody in baseball cares if batters strike out a lot? They accept the strikeouts for the chance to hit home runs? It you hit the ball someplace, anything can happen, some of it good. If you strike out, you've wasted an at bat and that's not good.
**Is some dumb owner really going to pay one of the big free agents available this winter $400 million over 10 years? How can you even spend that kind of money? I mean you can only buy so many pizzas.

***THEY SAID IT***
"Russian president Vladimir Putin, 65, scored seven goals in a pickup hockey game. Now, I don’t want to say the goalie did not try to stop Vlad’s shots, but I’ve seen Kardashians reach harder to pick up a book."  -- Alex Kaseberg
"Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Jameson Taillon says he’s open to urinating on his middle finger to heal a cut on it. Well, this should cut down on excessive autograph requests."  -- Janice Hough
"The two youngest players in Major League Baseball — Ronald Acuna Jr., 20, and Ozzie Albies, 21 — both homered for the Braves in a win over the Reds.Not that they’re young or anything but ... after the game teammates took them to Dairy Queen."  -- Dwight Perry

"Mets starter Jacob DeGrom threw 45 times in the first inning — and didn't give up a run. Yes; 45 times in one inning. I worked in advertising for 10 years and made fewer pitches."  -- RJ Currie
"The Minnesota Golden Gophers football team got a commitment from 6-8, 395-pound Australian lineman Daniel Faalele. Minnesota has lakes that are smaller."  -- Brad Dickson
"Rest in peace, Chuck Knox. His conservative/smash-mouth offensive philosophy earned him the nickname “Ground Chuck”"  -- The Sports Curmudgeon
"Can someone go into Wikipedia and change the Owner of The Toronto Raptors to LeBron James?"  -- Tony Chong

"Almost think golf should have Tiger Woods play every Sunday in a group with the leaders.   Just to have Americans pay attention to whoever is actually winning."  -- Janice Hough
"Former Raider, Aldon Smith, walked into a police station and blew a .41 blood-alcohol-content, five times the legal limit. That is drunk enough to go into a coma or marry a Kardashian. -- Alex Kaseberg
"Mariners legend Ichiro Suzuki insists he hasn’t decided to retire, he’s just not playing baseball this year. “Way ahead of you,” said the Baltimore Orioles."  -- RJ Currie
"Danica Patrick says she is settling into driving Indy cars again, but needs work in traffic. The good part is when she is racing she never has to use the rear view mirror to see who is behind her.. -- Jim Barach
"In just the past eight months, the Kansas cheer team has been suspended and three KU fraternities shut down amid hazing allegations. Turns out the least-threatening thing on campus is the football team."  -- Dwight Perry

CP-
 








Tuesday, May 01, 2018

LET'S FIX BASEBALL

.Sam Miller of ESPN has started a three-part series he calls, "The Radical Ideas Series." He says they are designed to open a conversation to fix baseball. I think baseball does need some work, but Mr. Miller's first idea isn't patently insane.
He suggests that every team make the playoffs and that they would start in September with some complicated format based on their winning percentage, beginning with the worst team playing the 2nd worst, etc. It's winner take all so lose and you go home. Imagine the excitement it would create.
Take last year's Tigers (64-98) playing the White Sox (67-95) in Chicago. You'd be lucky if they could draw 5000 fans from Chicago. On the other hand, 25 players get an extra month off. I still worry about some team with a .500 record knocking off a really good team because of some fluke play.
Keep that thinking cap on, Sam. The next two ideas have to be better.

Are we ever going to have a game when Angel Hernandez is one of the umpires when he doesn't escalate something into an argument when all a player is doing is blowing off steam? He was his usual asinine self Sunday night by chasing after CC Sabathia. CC is known for voicing his displeasure with calls as he walks off the mound. It means nothing. CC has forgotten about it by the time he reaches the dugout. But no, Angel has to chase after him, stopped by Mgr Aaron Boone before it got more out of hand. I've said it many times before: the minute an umpire goes after a player to argue or chastise him, the umpire is wrong. If an umpire got suspended for 5 games whenever that happened, this would stop very quickly.
Can you imagine a game with Country Joe West, Balking Bob Davidson and Angel Hernandez all doing their thing? I guarantee we'd end up with about 6 players on a side left by the 9th inning.

The Yanks were bound to lose eventually and the Astros are certainly no walk in the park. It would have been nice to manage more than 3 hits and 1 run, though. In a game where they only score one run, the Sonny Gray that the Yanks traded for finally showed up. Houston's Charlie Morton looked like he won't lose a game all year. Very dominating. The Yanks won't have to face anyone that  overpowering for the rest of the series...wait, Verlander? Keuchel? McCullers? We better hope for a couple of rainouts. What's that? Oh yeah: a dome.

What's with the Dodgers? They're in 4th place, 8 games out. Only three teams in the NL have a worse record. I know, there's still 134 games left, but you don't want to get into too deep a hole. Speaking of strange occurrences, the Miami Marlins have won three in a row. I wouldn't have been surprised if they only won three games in a month. Check back in a month with these two teams.

***THEY SAID IT***
"You can slip us this Mickey anytime: A 1952 Mantle baseball card has sold for $2.88 million — or 384 times the $7,500 he was paid to play that season."  -- Dwight Perry
"People are still marveling at Brandon Belt’s at-bat for San Francisco that lasted over 12 minutes against the Angels. Are you kidding me? It took former major leaguer Mike Hargrove 12 minutes just to walk up to the plate."  -- Bill Littlejohn
"WR Dez Bryant turned down a multi-season offer from the Ravens in hopes of landing a one-year deal somewhere. Even with the new catch rules, insiders think he dropped the ball."  -- RJ Currie
"Ersan Ilyasova said when the 76ers played the Heat “in Miami … the gym was half-empty.” “Half-empty” -or as the Marlins call that, an opening day crowd."  -- Janice Hough
"Colin Kaeperinck’s tryout was cancelled at the last minute by The Seahawks. His agent wanted Colin to be in the game only when Seattle was up by more than 17 points inside the 2 minute warning, and he could just come in and take a knee."  -- TC Chong
"A 20-year-old Colorado man, Dylan McWilliams survived a rattlesnake bite, a bear bite and a shark bite in a four-year span: “Based on these incidents, we do know a lot about this man. For example, he must taste delicious."  -- James Corden

CP-