Baseball. Blogging. Whenever.

Friday, December 05, 2008

Maddux to Retire

From: Craig
To: Ethan
Date: Friday, August 4, 2006 at 12:31 AM
Re: Maddux

So we took all of our summer clerks down to Cincinnati tonight for the Reds-Dodgers game. We're on the way back in the big custom bus now. Fabulous night. Maddux gets traded to L.A. last weekend. Tonight is his first start for them. The stars align, and I get to see my favorite player tonight. I buy a Dodgers hat and wear it down just to support Maddux, and, I'll admit, to be a bit annoying to Reds fans.

Maddux has a huge fork in his back. He is done. Kinda hard to watch him the last year or two, but I still root. I expect little or nothing from him.

Game starts. He gives up an early walk and I think it will be a long night. Then he starts throwing bullets. One. Two. Three. Five innings of no-hit ball. It's 1994 all over again. Sixth inning starts. Long fly . . . caught. Another . . . caught. Lightening in a bottle. Third batter comes up and he mows him down too. I'm alone in a ballpark screaming at the top of my lungs. No-hitter in effect. I know it won't last. Even in his prime Maddux never threw a no hitter because he's around the plate too much. He can't not throw strikes, even when he doesn't have his best stuff. He gets hit. That's what he does. Still, I think how nice it would be to not see him give up a hit.

As the top of the seventh begins, the skies open up and a deluge falls on Great American Ballpark. Lightning. Thunder. The Dodgers bat, and the half inning ends just as the umps call for a delay and the tarp comes out. Forty minutes. I know that there is no chance that Maddux is coming out for the bottom of the 7th. He's 40. His arm will be tight. He's a Hall of Famer already. He doesn't need the no-no to make him happy. They got him for the stretch run and they need to save his arm. Still, part of me hopes.

The game resumes with some kid I've never heard of on the mound [note: it was Joe Beimel. I've since heard of him]. He gives up a hit to the first batter. Never send a boy to do a man's job.

Dodgers win 3-0. Maddux gets the win. I get to see him pitch like he was in his prime again, and got to see him leave before anyone remembered he didn't have it anymore.

The earflap caps are coming!

Next weekend, fans will finally be able to buy Phillies ear-flap caps, like the one Jimmy Rollins wore during the victorious World Series homestand in late October. At first, however, they'll only be sold at the team's Majestic Clubhouse store at Citizens Bank Park . . . Other retailers won't get the caps until March, according to New Era, the exclusive provider of caps for Major-League Baseball.

Depression Porn

The Boston Globe's Drake Bennett asked a bunch of people, including me, what a 21st-century Depression might look like. The results sounded pretty damned good to some people--a sure sign of an affluent society, or at least affluent commentators.

The prospect of a Depression is already creating jobs for (a few) writers. Hodding Carter IV has gotten a book deal described by Publishers Weekly this way:

"After 10 years of profligate spending fueled by real estate flips, refinancing and credit card debt, the author will write about living on what he actually earns. In order to do so, he and his family of six will mine cost-saving techniques from the Great Depression and the first cookbook in America, and stay within their budget, whether that means growing their own food or bartering for things they need. Carter is writing a column based on his experiences for Gourmet."

If that last line doesn't bring a smile to your face, you really are depressed.

Following Up on John VanB

Right-hander John Van Benschoten, who was taken by the Pirates with the eighth overall pick in the 2001 First-Year Player Draft, has signed a Minor League deal with the [White] Sox, sources told MLB.com on Friday. Van Benschoten reportedly will be invited to the Sox big league Spring Training camp in Glendale, Ariz.

Wither* Tracy Ringolsby?

The Rocky, Colorado's oldest newspaper, was put up for sale on Thursday after owner E.W. Scripps Co. said it lost about $11 million on the operation in the first nine months of the year.

Cincinnati-based Scripps said in a news release that if no acceptable offers emerge by mid-January, it will "examine its other options." It gave no details.

An internal Denver Post memo, authored by publisher Dean Singleton, read in part, "an announced sale is usually the first step leading to a failing newspaper's closure."

"Scripps notified MediaNews Group [the owner of the Post] on November 19 that it planned to close the Rocky Mountain News as soon as practical," the memo said.

At least it’s not funded with tax dollars

Dubbed Studio 42 — after Jackie Robinson's number — the MLB Network will convert what used to be MSNBC's main set in Secaucus, N.J., into a sort of ballpark. Its infield is only half regulation size. But, says Tony Petitti, president of the MLB Network, which launches New Year's Day, it will have a "portable pitching mound" so analysts such as ex-pitcher Al Leiter can fire full-strength fastballs. Assuming there'd be somebody to catch.

And, says Petitti, the set will have "real padding" in its outfield walls as well as "real bleachers" — so studio audiences, presumably, would feel comfortable taking off their shirts.

The Waiting Game

The Yanks are not the destination they were in 2000, 2001, 2002, when they were making regular World Series appearances. The team is getting old. The beat writers are incessantly negative towards everyone but Mo and Jeter. Ownership is erratic, and that might be a very kind term to call Hank and Hal. And they play in the AL East, home of the reigning AL Champs and the 2007 World Series Champs. It's rough out there.

The Bonds Charges

Federal prosecutors dropped four counts of lying to a grand jury against Barry Bonds, leaving him to face trial next year on 10 counts of making false statements plus an additional obstruction of justice charge.

Bonds faces the same potential sentence range—probation to roughly two years in prison—if convicted. His trial is scheduled to begin March 2.

Thursday’s indictment, the third against the home-run king, came in response to U.S. District Judge Susan Illston’s decision last week ordering prosecutors to again rewrite the technically faulty indictment.

Pray for Josh Wilker

Today at THT