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Reds Robbed By Roy

A tip of the hat to Roy Halladay and his post-season no-hitter--only the second of its kind.

Masterful...

The story is here.

Feel The Heat

Where there's smoke, there's fire...

From Yahoo.sports.com:

Aroldis Chapman was summoned from the bullpen one batter too late to make a difference in the game. No matter. The 22-year-old Cincinnati Reds left-hander made do by making history Friday night, throwing the fastest pitch recorded in a major league game, a 105-mph fastball.
Ardolis Chapman's 25 pitches on Friday night (each registering 100 mph or faster, including his record-breaking 105 mph heater) must have been a blur to Padres batters.
(Christopher Hanewinckel/US Presswire)
The blazing pitch pushed a white-hot pennant race to the back burner. Yes, the San Diego Padres won the game 4-3 to pull ahead of the Atlanta Braves in the National League wild-card race. Sure, the San Francisco Giants all but buried the Colorado Rockies thanks to a dominant performance by Tim Lincecum(notes).
But the lingering memory was of a now-you-see-it, did-I-actually-see-it fastball to Tony Gwynn(notes) in the eighth inning. The pitch was not a fluke: Chapman threw 25 pitches in his 1 1/3 innings of relief, and every one was at least 100 mph. He didn’t throw a slider. He didn’t throw a changeup. Why would he?

More here.

'Donnie Baseball' Loves L.A.

One of my favorite baseball players of all-time will get his place in the sun.
Former Yankee great Don Mattingly will replace former Yankee manager and current Los Angeles Dodger skipper Joe Torre in 2011. 
Torre said today that he won't return next year.
Readers of this blog may remember a time when the Yankees ruled in this space. Then they treated Joe Torre like shit and built that fake Yankee Stadium with tons of public money and I remembered the lyrics to "Take Me Out to the Ballgame":


"Let me root, root, root for the home team,
If they don't win it's a shame.
For it's one, two, three strikes, you're out,
At the old ball game."


Cheers to Donnie Baseball and best wishes to Joe. Both survived the Boss and lived to tell about it; now Joe rides off into a SoCal sunset while Donnie gets to ride out the wacky carnival that is the McCourt divorce. 

And it's all still just a game...

A-Rod At 599: What's In A Number (Anymore?)

A little too juicy for me, so not as much as it might have been...

From ESPN:

Alex Rodriguez moved to within one home run of a plateau inhabited by only six other players in baseball history, the 600 Club, Thursday night when he belted No. 599 off Kansas City Royals reliever Robinson Tejeda in the seventh inning at Yankee Stadium.
Rodriguez's blast, his 16th of the season, was a solo shot into the lower right-field seats on an 0-2 pitch that gave the Yankees a 6-4 lead en route to a 10-4 win. The blast moved him to seventh on the all-time home run list, behind Sammy Sosa, Ken Griffey Jr., Willie Mays, Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron and Barry Bonds.

Oh, baseball; how I hate my tainted love...

Teabaggin' Touchhole Tony La Russa Strikes Out.

From ESPN.com:

St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa says he supports Arizona legislation calling for tougher enforcement against illegal immigrants.
Opponents of the law have called for Major League Baseball to move the 2011 All-Star Game out of the state.
La Russa says Arizona has a problem that the national government has failed to remedy. The manager, who lives in northern California, spoke this week before a game in St. Louis between the Cardinals and Arizona Diamondbacks.
"I'm actually a supporter of what Arizona is doing," La Russa said. "If the national government doesn't fix your problem, you've got a problem. You've got to fix it yourself. That's just part of the American way."
Gov. Jan Brewer signed a state law in April requiring police officers to question a person's immigration status if there's reasonable doubt he or she might be in the country illegally.
Dozens of St. Louis Tea Party members were at Busch Stadium to show their support of the Arizona immigration law, prompting La Russa to touch on the subject.
La Russa told reporters he encouraged the presence of different points of view, and said he believed the Tea Party's stances were "correct" on "a lot of things."

That's La Russa's mug shot above. Funny; he didn't seem so "law and order" when he fell asleep at a red light because he was loaded. But I guess his papers must have been in order...

Angel Flying Too Close To The Ground.

Sorry, Willie, but I had to steal your lyric.
L.A. Angel first baseman Kendry Morales hit a 10th-inning, walk-off grand slam yesterday. Then be broke his leg during the celebration.

Willie?

And I patched up your broken wing
And hung around a while
Tried to keep your spirits up
And your fever down...

Angel flying too close to the ground...

Perfect.

Roy Halladay has one of those perfect days...

Bill O'Reilly Steps In It Again.

Flipping around between NBA games tonight, and I land on Fox News for ninety seconds I'll never get back.

Bill O'Reilly and former comedian Dennis Miller are yammering on about President Obama's failure to name a single favorite White Sox player, even though he is the Pale Hose First Fan.

(First health care reform, now this!)

Anyway, O'Reilly and Miller mockingly prattle on; Miller in his smarmy, self-satisfied, Trivial Pursuit-like style, and O'Reilly simply as the asshole he always is.

O'Reilly--chuckling still--then attempts to one-up Obama by naming a couple of White Sox players he really likes, one from the Paleolithic Age (Minnie Minoso, which O'Reilly mispronounces as "Min-o-sah") and the other--Jimmy Piersall-- who was a Sox, all right---albeit a Red one.

If Miller even knew the difference, he was too busy laughing at his own non-sequiturs to notice.

I immediately flipped it back to the ESPN commercial break.

How Long Before Scott Boras Signs Ariel Antigua Over A Happy Meal?

H/T: Sports Illustrated.

Opening Day.

Katie Casey was baseball mad.
Had the fever and had it bad;
Just to root for the home town crew,
Ev'ry sou Katie blew.
On a Saturday, her young beau
Called to see if she'd like to go,
To see a show but Miss Kate said,
"No, I'll tell you what you can do."

"Take me out to the ball game,
Take me out with the crowd.
Buy me some peanuts and cracker jack,
I don't care if I never get back,
Let me root, root, root for the home team,
If they don't win it's a shame.
For it's one, two, three strikes, you're out,
At the old ball game."

Katie Casey saw all the games,
Knew the players by their first names;
Told the umpire he was wrong,
All along good and strong.
When the score was just two to two,
Katie Casey knew what to do,
Just to cheer up the boys she knew,
She made the gang sing this song:

"Take me out to the ball game,
Take me out with the crowd.
Buy me some peanuts and cracker jack,
I don't care if I never get back,
Let me root, root, root for the home team,
If they don't win it's a shame.
For it's one, two, three strikes, you're out,
At the old ball game."

(1908, Jack Norworth.)

Balls & Strikes.

From the AP via SportsIllustrated.com:

Denard Span's mother settled into her box seat, surrounded by 20 family members and friends, to watch her son lead off for the Minnesota Twins.
Uh oh. Look out!
In a shocking split-second, Span hit a hard foul ball that struck his mom in the upper chest Wednesday. She was treated by paramedics and back in the stands minutes later.
"Tell everyone that I'm all right," Wanda Wilson told The Associated Press hours later by telephone. "Everyone was so worried, he was so worried. But I'm all right."

I'm glad Span's mom is OK, but this kind of reminds me of the time I was golfing on the Canadian border in New York State with a Roadway truck driver named Dick.

One of the holes ran parallel to the main road leading to the course. Dick hit his tee shot and we watched as it hooked toward the road. A pick-up truck was headed our way while the golf ball was headed directly at the windshield of the truck. Dick and I stood watching as the tee shot and the windshield met head on. Inebriated golfers laugh at this kind of thing, but Dick stopped laughing when the truck got a little closer and pulled off the side of the road. This was when Dick's wife hopped out, and he realized he had just smashed the windshield of his own truck.

It was right about then that I laughed even harder...

Get Well Soon, Vin.

From the L.A. Times:

Longtime Dodgers play-by-play announcer Vin Scully was admitted to a hospital Thursday night after falling out of bed and hitting his head, said Josh Rawitch, the Dodgers' vice president of communications.
Scully was taken from his Hidden Hills home to West Hills Hospital and Medical Center for precautionary reasons and will stay overnight for observation.
Rawitch said the Dodgers expect him to re-join the team in Glendale, Ariz., at Camelback Ranch this weekend for Sunday's telecast between the Dodgers and Cleveland Indians.
Scully is entering his 61st season as the Dodgers’ broadcaster. He is scheduled to broadcast all of the Dodgers’ home games, as well as their road games against National League West and American League West opponents.

UPDATE: Vin's OK, and there's a nice piece here.

That Was Then, This Is Now.

I was at Dodger Stadium in 1988 when Kirk Gibson hit that World Series home run. Even the hardcore Yankee fan in me went batshit. Chavez Ravine was seriously rockin'.
Fast-forward twenty years. It's 2008, and it's mid-season when I stroll into the Poop Deck. I was following the Dodgers by this point, although conflicted, like a teenager who couldn't decide which girl to ask to the prom. A guy on his Blackberry screams at me, "We got Manny! We got Manny!" I half-expected Tommy Lasorda to come waddling out of the men's room and kiss me on the cheek.
There is no doubt that Manny Ramirez's arrival fired up the Dodger base and transfixed a somewhat somnambulant yet fiercely loyal bunch of Dodger fans like nothing since that magical run in '88. But--Manny became Manny, just as he was billed to become--and a subsequent 50-game suspension in '09 and his ineffectual return meant that Hollywood would need another story line in 2010.
Kemp and Ethier it is, which works just fine for me, and I don't even like buddy flicks.

Go BLUE!
Play ball...

(Read about the rebranding here.)

Koufax And Torre: Safe At Home

I'm not a big fan of the TV machine, but I watched Sandy Koufax and Joe Torre with the L.A. Times' T.J. Simers last night. It was a benefit for Torre's Safe At Home foundation, and it was superb.

Kudos to two old ballplayers for talking about balls and strikes, but not only about balls and strikes.

(But, yeah, thanks for all that Inside Baseball, too.)

I will catch this thing on reruns until the videotape dissolves.

Here's a piece from the L.A. Times.

Tastes Great, Less Filling.

From Fanhouse.com:

Manny being Manny. Rarely have three small words ever so perfectly captured the essence of a man as that phrase captures Manny Ramirez.
Going to the bathroom during an inning? Manny being Manny. Testing positive for female hormone drugs? Manny being Manny. Hitting a baseball like a god and living the rest of your life like a man without a brain? Manny being Manny.
Add endorsing an energy drink with a name that's sure to have third graders across the country snorting chocolate milk out of their noses to the list. According to Dylan Hernandez of the Los Angeles Times, Manny will be endorsing a product called, ahem, Sum Poosie. If by some chance you don't get it, just go back and re-read it a couple of times.

Is that Manny on third base?

Life Is Good.

The Say Hey Kid Does The Daily Show.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Willie Mays
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

Mark's Man.

In news from around the world of sports, baseball's first blind manager claimed to be among the only people on Earth unaware that Mark McGwire was juicing.

From ESPN:

In an interview with ESPN's "Baseball Tonight," (Cards manager Tony) La Russa said he didn't know McGwire had used steroids until the slugger admitted using performance-enhancing drugs in the phone call to the manager earlier Monday.

"He found out this morning," McGwire told (Bob) Costas of La Russa. "He's like talking to my dad. I've let a lot of people down."

In other news, Jose Canesco was last seen on his iPhone, laughing hysterically while pitching a sequel to his book publisher.

Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word.

Mark McGwire admitted today to using performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) throughout most of his career.

His use of PEDs always seemed an open secret, and I've read countless columns by sportswriters who felt McGwire shouldn't darken the doors of the Hall of Fame not because his numbers came up short, but because they felt he had juiced. I've never thought McGwire belonged in the Hall simply because I believe he was a one-dimensional ballplayer. The steroids for me were Exhibit B.

McGwire's homer totals are gaudy; his home run ratio (1 per 10.61 at-bats) is a major league record. And, yes, he once won a Gold Glove. But his stat line also indicates that while a needle in the ass can build Paul Bunyon-like bulk, it won't help you get more than 1,626 hits over 16 seasons or nudge your career batting average higher than a pedestrian .263. It is also worth asking whether years of steroid use contributed to the five full injury-marred seasons in which McGwire failed to play in even 100 games. When McGwire built that McMansion on his bones, the foundation was bound to crack.

A few days ago, I posted about a possible solution to finding a place in Cooperstown for Steroid Era players. But McGwire's admission won't cause me to change my mind about his worthiness to join baseball's greats in the Hall of Fame. Viewing Big Mac's stat line, I see a juiced-up ode to baseball's tacit, winking PED approval, a fan base run amok on Homer Hysteria, and a Bash Brother eager to cash in on both.

I don't have a problem with McGwire momentos in Cooperstown. Bats, balls, uniforms, whatever; the Hall is a living history. Moving forward, I hope he finds peace back in the dugout as the Cardinals new hitting instructor. Still, his apology shouldn't earn him the plaque his lopsided numbers simply don't justify.