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May 23, 2013

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And That Happened

See you on the other side

My Morning in Exile

Baseball. Blogging. Whenever.

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

And That Happened

White Sox 2, Rays 1: Chris Sale: 15Ks and three hits in seven and a third. Adam Dunn hit a two-run homer.

Red Sox 7, Tigers 4: Jim Leyland said that we saw what we saw and should write what we saw, so let's do that: The Red Sox' second inning rally never should have happened but did because with two outs, the umpire said that Mike Aviles hit a foul tip that the catcher didn't catch. Except replays showed it was a clean swing and miss that was caught. So, per Jim Leyland's instructions, let us have some sort of robot/cyborg/android umpires now. That aside, Doug Fister did get beat up a bit, which serves him right for me having the parody song "Hey Doug Fister" in my head all weekend. It wasn't his fault, but it makes wish I had actual Train songs in my head.

Indians 8, Royals 5: Jose Lopez and Jason Kipnis combined for five RBI, which is exactly how we expected the middle of the Indians order to roll this season.

Cubs 11, Padres 7: The Cubs' losing streak finally ends with an offensive 'aslposin. Three RBI a piece for Starlin Castro, Alfonso Soriano and Ian Stewart. Big winds blowing out helped the teams combine for eight home runs. Chase Headley had two of 'em.

Rockies 9, Astros 7; Rockies 7, Astros 6: Wandy Rodriguez had been pitching really well. I guess all good things must come to an end, because he got tattooed in the early game of the twin bill (5 IP, 10H, 7 R, 4 ER). In the late game, Dexter Fowler tripled home Michael Cuddyer in the 10th. Fourteen pitchers were used between the teams in the nightcap.

Giants 4, Diamondbacks 2: Barry Zito, seven innings, seven hits two earned runs. Gregor Blanco doubled twice. It was Kirk Gibson's 55th birthday yesterday. On Sunday it as Siouxsie Sioux's 55th birthday. Why I knew both of those things is a mystery to me too.

Pirates 4, Reds 1: James McDonald pitched eight five-hit shutout innings. How the Pirates are at .500 with their cruddy offense is beyond me, but there they are.

Twins 5, Athletics 4: Justin Morneau drove in a couple, Joe Mauer went two for three and scored twice and Matt Capps got a save despite being greeted into the game by a chorus of boos. Just like the season was supposed to go.

Marlins 5, Nationals 3: Logan Morrison and Giancarlo Stanton homered, Carlos Zambrano pitched six strong innings and Heath Bell got a 1-2-3 save. Just like the season was supposed to go.

Phillies 8, Mets 4: Ty Wigginton drove in six and Cole Hamles won his eighth.

Cardinals 8, Braves 2: Lance Lynn also won his eighth. Matt Adams drove in three. And the Braves will apparently never win a game again. They have fallen all the way from first to last place in a little more than a week.

Rangers 4, Mariners 2: Mike Napoli with a three-run homer and Matt Harrison with eight strong innings.

Blue Jays 6, Orioles 2: Drew Hutchison struck out nine in seven shutout innings and the Jays snapped their losing streak. the Orioles have lost three in a row and six of eight. For all the drama in the AL East this year, it's still anyone's division.

Brewers 3, Dodgers 2: The game was interesting, but to me the most interesting part was hearing Vin Scully explain how home plate umpire Brian Gorman's father -- also an umpire -- was buried in full umpire regalia with a ball-strike counter in his hand, set to 3-2. I'm sure that's not proprietary information, but I'm also sure that only Vin Scully is gonna talk about that stuff during a game. And it's awesome. Oh, and Jerry Hairston is hitting .394/.474/.530 in 66 plate appearances. The most useful bench dude in the majors this year?

Angels 9, Yankees 8: Picked a wrong morning to have to wake up for an early as hell flight, because it meant I didn't stay up to watch Mark Trumbo hit a walkoff homer to end this wild one. The Angels blew a three-run lead and suffered the early loss of Jered Weaver to win their seventh straight. Perseverance? I think so. And definitely a team turning things around.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 6:35am

Friday, November 27, 2009

See you on the other side

And thus endeth the current iteration of ShysterBall. Starting Monday it will be all CTB, all the time. It'll be everything ShysterBall is and more. I'm hoping you all join me.

But this is not goodbye old friends, it is merely farewell, for I will be back on the esteemed pages of THT come April with "And That Happened." Same Bat Time -- early -- but different Bat Channel -- most likely at THT Live. I may even start doing it on the weekends. We'll see.

Like I said yesterday, thanks to all of you for making this blog everything that it has become. If it weren't for your clicks, comments, praise and, occasionally, scorn, I would have quit a long time ago. If that had happened and I never would have realized my dream of becoming a full time writer and there would be one more practicing lawyer in the world come Monday. Nobody needs that.

I'm the luckiest sonofabitch on the face of the Earth, and don't you think for a second I don't know that. And for that allow me to, once again, offer my thanks.

Craig

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 1:00pm

My Morning in Exile

I actually came in to work today because I figured my last day should be a Friday. I'm like the only attorney in the whole office. Even better? They entrusted me with the coffee club money to pay the guy from the catering company who comes by on Fridays. What's stopping me from running off with the $26 they gave me? For that matter, what's to stop me from running off with laptops, video conferencing equipment and The Great Seal of the State of Ohio? I'll tell you what: Ethics. You double-cross once - where's it all end?

If you're over 35 it's hanky time.

The Jays more or less tell Rod Barajas to take his flunky and dangle.

Ohlendorff, eh? You want a job? You got references? You been to college? We ONLY take yeggs what's been to college, ain't that right, Dane?

Seein' Kevin Towers mope around with no job ruins Brian Cashman's, whaddya call it, "joy de veever"? So he's gonna probably give him one.

Andy MacPhail: Orioles fans don't like it when you give 'em the high hat.

Jose Contreras may not have a lot left in the tank, but the old man's still an artist with a Thompson.

OK, that last one was a stretch, but I had it in me mind to do all of these with "Miller's Crossing" quotes, and that's the best I could do.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 11:22am

Thursday, November 26, 2009

Giving Thanks

The past couple of Thanksgivings I did a post in which I ran down the teams, one by one, and noted what they had to be thankful for. I don't have that kind of snark in me this year. Probably because I'm so damn preoccupied with those things I am thankful for.

This time last year I had been laid off -- but wasn't yet gone -- from my last law firm and I was unsure of what the new year held for me and my family. Things worked out alright, of course. After a 47-day vacation to begin the year I started at the Ohio Attorney General's Office and everything worked out OK. There are people who had and are having way, way worse times of it than I had, but during that uncertain time I was constantly made aware of how many good friends I have and how great my family truly is.

This time last year I was also winding down the original Blogspot ShysterBall and getting ready to jump over here to THT. As I sit here today, just under a year from the switch, I can't believe I ever blogged anywhere else. The THT folks -- from Studes on down -- have been unbelievably welcoming and supportive, and the THT readership has been beyond outstanding. Having so many smart people reading the blog has made me keenly aware of what I don't know, and knowing what you don't know is the key to learning and improving. B.S. is easy. Thank you all for not allowing me shovel it more than I already do.

So here we are at another Thanksgiving; my favorite holiday and the time of year when I traditionally take stock of where I am in the universe. In four short days I will again begin something new. I'm not going to lie to you: I'm nervous. Nervous that I don't have the chops to do what I do now in six to ten posts in a given day across sixteen or twenty or more posts over at NBC. Nervous that the readership won't get or appreciate Hitchhiker's Guide or "2001" or "Miller's Crossing" or World War I references. Nervous that the need to generate traffic and buzz and all of that stuff will cause me to shovel more B.S. than I already do and become some sort of Walter Winchell caricature. Wait -- I like Walter Winchell; he had pizazz. I'm actually nervous that I'll become some sort of Perez Hilton for baseball or something. I doubt I will, but stranger things have happened. How about you all just follow me over and keep me honest, OK?

But enough about me. As you gather with family and friends today take a few moments and think about how profoundly wonderful it is that we have people who love us and people we love. It's a nasty world. I tend to have a pessimistic view of human nature. For that reason, I am encouraged whenever I see people caring for one another in even the smallest of ways. Like it's a triumph over hate and want and death and entropy and all of that terrible stuff that stalks us all, whether we know it or not. Yeah, that sounds like a downer, but when you view human kindness as a virtue instead of a given you're rarely disappointed.

OK, I'm going off the rails here. For now let me cut things short and wish all of you a Happy Thanksgiving.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 6:00am

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

The final Geoff Baker Rigidity Award of the ShysterBall Era

Remember the Geoff Baker Rigidity Awards? If not, they were a short series of posts I wrote last spring in the wake of the Jerod Morris/Raul Ibanez steroid dustup. You know, the one in which a blogger said that it was possible, based on a statistical pattern, that Raul used PEDs and then every mainstream writer came out of the woodwork to attack said blogger for being irresponsible? Following all of that, our friend Geoff Baker wrote a column in which he claimed that the people who hurl this kind of baseless innuendo wouldn't have passed the "very rigid course" he taught at Concordia University. Never mind that Baker himself and countless other members of the media had done the same or worse in the past without anyone raising an eyebrow. A blogger though? Lord, have mercy.

Anyway, I recap all of that because, for the first time in a long time, we have a candidate. It's Sam Donnellon of the Philadelphia Daily News, who in the process of breaking down Philly's third base options, says this about Adiran Beltre, a man who has never been accused -- based on any evidence anyway -- of doing steroids:

Beltre, 31, hit 48 home runs with the Dodgers in 2004, but who didn't hit 48 home runs in the pre-congressional steroid hearings world of 2004?

Since then, he has hit no more than 26.

I'm just saying . . .

You'll recall that Rick Reilly won the first ever GBRA for his own evidence-free accusation of Beltre. Did Beltre take steroids? I don't know! For what it's worth, Beltre denies it and, for even more of what it's worth, though it may have been a "pre-congressional steroid hearings" world, they were testing for steroids in 2004.

But the point is that neither Donnellon nor Reilly know either, and if they're going to drag Jerod Morris or any other blogger through the mud for leveling such claims, they had better be prepared to withstand Geoff Baker's rigidity as well.

Or something.

(thanks to reader Jay S. for the link)

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 3:14pm

My Morning in Exile

As I'm winding up work this morning, a law student who has worked in my office as a clerk since the beginning of summer left me a mix CD entitled "Music that Craig Likes?" She and I have been friendly enough, but we've never talked about music or pop culture or anything like that. Certainly not about anything of enough substance that would give anyone a sufficient lead to go and pick out 15 songs that are likely to be up my alley. Skeptical, I put the CD in. The results: fabulous. Mostly old school punk -- Richard Hell and the Voidoids, Stiff Little Fingers, The Damned, and more mainstream stuff like the Ramones and the Clash -- but also some nice 80s and 90s flavor like Billy Bragg, Nick Cave and the Pixies. To top it off, she ended it all with "The Breaks" by Kurtis Blow because, hell, just because. All stuff I love, but mostly stuff I last had on Memorex tapes circa 1990 and lost somewhere between then and real adulthood. If she had merely parroted my current record collection she would have gotten points for coming up with a good profile. Putting together stuff I (a) love; and (b) have lost turned what merely could have been a fabulous mix CD into a transcendent one.

Is this law clerk some sort of mind reader or, as another coworker said a few minutes ago, do I merely give off super obvious aging hipster vibe? I don't think it's the latter. In fact, I've always assumed most people who meet me figure that I'm an old fart who generally wants people off his lawn. Which is true, of course, but either way doesn't lead anyone to think that I'd actually enjoy a CD full of punk. I dunno, the lesson here, such as there is one, is that you just never know, ya know?

Anyway: I wrote seven posts for CTB this morning. Right now they're missing for some technical reason, but I assume they'll come back soon. Stuff about Roy Halladay and the Red Sox, stuff about Johnny Damon begging the media to ask the Yankees if they'll sign him (quite an endorsement of Scott Boras) stuff about poor Frank McCourt only having a million bucks to his name. A post about Billy Wagner being a good fit for the Braves. Tim Lincecum's arbitration demand. Something about Adrian Gonzalez being off limits. There's another one in there, too, but I can't remember it. Click here. If it works, great. If not, click again later. We're reaching the point of my legal career where I feel comfortable drinking bourbon in the office, so I'm not gonna check back a whole lot.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 11:39am

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

My very long Morning in Exile

I pulled double duty over at the Blue Network today. Let's get to it:

The Angels could be the Tigers' Huckleberry.

The Tigers are allegedly shopping Miguel Cabrera. Unless they think he's gonna crawl into the bottom of a bottle and never come out again, they probably shouldn't.

Pujols is a lock for the MVP. In all else lies madness.

Kenny Williams chews the fat with Bobby Jenks.

Great Moments in solving free rider problems.

The Twins are gonna try and put a nice little something under their fans' Christmas trees. If that doesn't work, plan B is Bakugans.

The Angels could be in on Roy Halladay.

The post in which I imagine what a conversation between Brian Cashman and Scott Boras may sound like. I leave out the whole bit in which they carve up the Earth-shaped cake, however.

Joba and Phil will be "programmed to start." Is that better than "Licensed to Ill?" How about "Born to Boogie?"

The owners have a lot more money than they used to and they keep a greater percentage of it. Why, then, do people still complain about those "greedy players"?

THE Bryan Bullington?!

The Mets look good for 2010. At least in some respects.

Ah. So that's what it feels like to blog full time. I probably need to start working out more or something, because I'm a bit winded.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 1:52pm

Monday, November 23, 2009

Mauer Power

Pop quiz, hot shot: There's a catcher who wins the Gold Glove, the batting title and leads the league in on base and slugging percentage. What do you call him?

MVP.

That is, unless you're the (presumably) Detroit-area voter who put Miguel Cabrera in front of Mauer in first place, costing him the unanimous MVP.

Same dude who voted Verlander over Greinke for the Cy Young award? If so, is it time to investigate whether this city-by-city system is the best way to go?

UPDATE: Ken Davidoff Tweets that it was Keizo Konishi of Kyodo News, based in Seattle, who voted Miguel Cabrera first. I can think of no worldly justification for voting Cabrera ahead of either Mauer or Jeter for that matter, so I eagerly await Mr. Konishi's explanation.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 2:24pm

My Morning in Exile

Had my last Monday morning staff meeting this morning. Next Monday: it's me, my cat, my Ipod, my pajamas, a pot of coffee and a big bowl of Count Chocula. Until then:

Omar Vizquel is Snake Eyes to Ozzie Guillen's Storm Shadow.

Comment of the day comes from Len over at NBC: "Hey, Frenchie might hit a double!"

A-Rod's cousin's house is being foreclosed upon. There's a good chance that it's a walkaway as opposed to a hardship case, and the piece itself quotes someone saying that A-Rod is still taking care of the guy financially, but don't let that stop the Daily News from portraying this as a situation in which A-Rod threw his family under the bus and then abandoned him. That's just how they do.

If they throw in another $6 million I'll take Mike Lowell off the Red Sox' hands. I could use some veteran presence around the house.

Not having enough scouts is the new inefficiency.

The biggest difference between blogging full time and blogging part time is that when you blog full time, you pretty much have to opine on things like the backup catcher market. I'm cool with that. In fact, going forward, I'm going to view making innocuous stories like that interesting as a creative challenge.

As I mentioned the other day, the job change is tempting me to take a stab at reviving my long dead personal blog. I make no promises that it will keep going -- two blogs tends to be a challenge -- but I've got a new post up today. It won't be anything like my baseball writing in terms of volume -- if I get one or two new things up a week over there I'll be happy. And if it dies again, hell, it dies.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 11:38am

Friday, November 20, 2009

Great Moments in Championship Celebrations

This has nothing to do with baseball at all, but this story sent to me by MooseinOhio is so cool that I gotta post it somewhere.*

After the Celtics won the 1986 championship, [Bill] Walton sat alone in Bird’s kitchen drinking Wild Turkey until after the sun came up.

I told Bird I didn’t believe the Walton story. Simply too good to be true.

“Yeah, it happened,’’ he said. “After we won, me and Dinah went out to K.C. Jones’s restaurant. He had a rib place. I had two beers. Remember how we stopped drinking that year?’’ - the ’86 Celtics swore off alcohol for their playoff run - “Well, I had two beers and they didn’t even taste good. I was tired, anyway, so I went home an hour later.

“Bill came over. It was late. Doorbell rang and Dinah answered and she was like, ‘Hey, Bill. Larry’s in bed.’ I heard him, so I go out and I said, ‘Hey, man I ain’t doing this tonight. I can’t.’ He goes, ‘Don’t worry about it. I don’t even need you. I’m just going to sit down here at the table.’ He had a bottle of whiskey. And he said, ‘I’ll be here when you wake up.’ And he was.

Drinking Wild Turkey in a kitchen until dawn > spraying champagne all over sweaty guys in a locker room. Though, yeah, I suppose those things aren't mutually exclusive activities after cutting down the nets.

*As an FYI, after the switchover to NBC, I'm probably going to revive my old dead personal blog for stuff that I can't really post over there, non-baseball stuff, and what have you. As of now there's only some old remembrances and a road trip diary. It might serve as a nice hangout going forward, though.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 1:00pm

My Morning in Exile

So I get to take the kids for their H1N1 vaccinations today. That should be a barrel of laughs. On the bright side, they're spending the night at my folks' house, so I'll only have to hear their complaining about it until I drop them off around dinner time. After that, Mrs. Shyster and I grab some fabulous Columbus cuisine and sample the hot Columbus nightlife. Well, what else are we gonna do? We're all through with "The Wire" DVDs.

On the heels of his Cy Young ballot yesterday, you won't be surprised to learn that Keith Law has Carl Pavano at number one on his annual list of Top 50 free agents.

Tim Lincecum's agent, employer and publicist are very, very sorry for his actions.

Gammons and Edes break down the Red Sox' offseason. They'll return to pretending to be national as opposed to local columnists later today.

Aaron Heilman will definitely be coming out of the pen in Arizona.

Stephen Strasburg hurts his knee; Matt Wieters called to lay hands.

Paul Lo Duca: he may be old, he may have been a steroid creation, he may have messed around behind his wife's back with a teenage girl and he may have been caught up in gambling allegations, but . . . wait, I lost my train of thought here. Anyone wanna go get a sandwich?

As for "The Wire," the best thing I got out of it is the certainty that my recent decision to stop watching any non-ballgame-related television was a good one. Unless they bring back "Barney Miller" or something, there's no way any show can top it, so why waste my time?

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 11:10am

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Your Thursday afternoon tizzy

There is some brewing discontent over the NL Cy Young vote, as two members of the webby portion of the BBWAA -- our friends Keith Law and Will Carroll -- did not include Chris Carpenter on their three-man Cy Young ballots. Keith voted Javier Vazquez second (Lincecum first and Wainwright third) and Will voted Wainwright first, Lincecum second and Danny Haren third. They were the only ones who included Vazquez or Haren on their ballots.

A comment about this from reader Ron in the thread below my earlier post:

“Two voters, Will Carroll of Baseball Prospectus and Keith Law of ESPN.com, did not include Carpenter on their ballots.” Nice. Leave the best pitcher in the NL off of your ballots to insure the saber-metric favorite wins. The BBWAA guys might not be the best at voting, but the saber friendly guys don’t have the right to accuse them of manipulating the vote anymore.

Ron, I love you. You've been reading this blog longer than just about anyone and I always appreciate your input. But you're factually wrong here inasmuch as even if Will changed his vote for Haren to Carpenter and and Law did the same with his Vazquez vote, Lincecum still wins. And really, if Will was really trying to throw it to Lincecum, wouldn't he have voted him first?

But I don't mean to single out Ron. I posted his comment simply because it stands at the somewhat extreme end of the discontent I've read at a few message boards. There really are people out there scratching their heads at this, and I imagine there will be at least a little grousing about their votes over the next couple of slow news days.

For my part, I wouldn't have voted the same way Keith and Will did -- neither Vazquez nor Haren would have made my ballot -- but they explain their rationale and I understand why they voted the way they voted even if I disagree with it. At the very least I understand docking Carpenter based on innings pitched, and that seems to be the point of controversy here. I'm a bit more of a romantic than Keith and Will are, I think, so I'd probably have included him on my ballot for reasons associated with his comeback from injury and all of that, but it's certainly legitimate to not include him.

I predict that some people will use Keith's and Will's votes in some argument that statheads shouldn't be given the franchise over the next couple of days. Such an argument, if it comes, should be rejected out of hand. At most this is some down-ballot curiosity, the sort of which we see on the votes for every award.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 4:24pm

Lincecum takes the Cy Young

I don't have a link yet, but people are talking about it already. He's a fine choice. Great year. I probably undervalued the fact that he had more innings than Carpenter, so no arguments here.

Given that he has a court date on a controlled substance thing coming up soon, be prepared for the most boring celebration party of all time.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 1:54pm

My Morning in Exile

I know it's basically just been a string of MMIE's lately, and for that I apologize. Wrapping up one's legal career and preparing to jump right into a new one really has a way of taking up the afternoon. Still, six new posts a day ain't exactly chopped liver as far as baseball bloggers go. You can still complain in the comments, though. Heck, I'm not happy with it myself. I feel like I'm watching baseball from 1000 yards right now. Anyway:

A guy I know up in Flint tells this story about life at GM in the 80s that may be total bullshit, but I hope to God is true (it's certainly truthy). Goes like this: GM used to give out cash awards to engineers and designers who came up with particularly innovative ideas, redesigns, etc. that ended up being adopted in production cars. One year, this fellow suggests that the radiator caps and windshield washer fill caps and stuff be painted and color coded so that morons don't confuse them with one another and, I dunno, quit putting oil in the radiator. Great idea! Here's your $1000 or whatever. After it's put in production, the paint started to burn and bubble under the heat of the engine and caused a terrible smell. Same guy proposes that they cease painting the caps and gets another $1000. I bring this up only because Bud Selig now has the bright idea to tighten up the playoff schedule he loosened up a couple of years ago. I can't wait until this dude's Hall of Fame induction speech.

The Nats hire Davey Johnson. Maybe they should call Howard Johnson about their opening at shortstop.

Hideki Matsui pays for himself. You can't afford not to buy!

Scott Boras is allegedly living in fantasyland. I wish it were "Fantasy Island." I loved that show. I even liked the Malcom McDowell remake from a few years ago. Smiles everyone, smiles.

Lincecum or Carpenter? I dunno. Lincecum was probably better, but I'm finding myself sort of leaning Carpenter. If this whole blogging thing takes off I suppose it's not crazy to think that I'd become a BBWAA member someday. In light of that I should probably man-up and make a case for one of them.

The Yankees and Jays are talking Roy Halladay. If that happens, they may as well just suspend baseball because it will guarantee the Yankees the championship. You know, like how signing Mike Mussina, Jason Giambi and Randy Johnson guaranteed them all of those championships a few years ago.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 12:16pm

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

My Morning in Exile

In the wake of my many threats to grow the greatest Grizzly Adams beard the world has ever seen once I start blogging full time next month, my wife emails me this post written by famed blogger Heather Armstrong and says "you married the wrong woman!" Which, while I see her point, is totally not true. Armstrong may have a thing for guys at computers with beards, but she's a stay at home blogger too. If I had married her, our kids wouldn't have health insurance. So, no worries Mrs. Shyster, I still love you and all of your fabulous benefits . . .

Mike Scioscia and Jim Tracy are almost certain to win the Manager of the Year Award today.

The Nats are interested in John Lackey. I'm interested in expensive stuff that I can't really use too, but neither of us is going to get it.

Are the Dodgers going to go after Keith Lockhart too?

Cooool.

Joba has no idea if he's gonna start or come out of the pen next year. He doesn't strike me as a live-in-the-moment guy, so the Yankees should probably tell him their plans eventually.

Rosenthal says that Mark DeRosa is going to sign with the Phillies. He also had the story on my breakfast before I even woke up this morning. Dude's good at what he does.

Attention Omar: there's a guy out there who doesn't suck who actually wants to play for the Mets. You'd better get on this before he changes his mind.

Parent-teacher conference at ShysterDaughter's kindergarten at 1PM. I have this feeling that the fact that I've been calling her "Mookie" lately is going to come up.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 11:31am

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Great Moments in Transparency: Christina Kahrl’s Rookie of the Year vote

It's too much to ask every writer to be as thorough as Christina Kahrl is in explaining her Rookie of the Year vote, but how nice would it be if every voter actually explained the thought process behind their awards choices?

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 3:59pm

It’s Greinke

Not a big surprise. Two writers voted King Felix first. One voted for Verlander. First place votes for Sabathia would have bothered me. Overall nothing to complain about here.

He's getting married on Saturday too, so all in all it's a pretty good week for Zack.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 2:41pm

My Morning in Exile

Slow day, so I scan the news. Great (Captain Robert Falcon) Scott! Or was it Shackleton?

AL Cy Young today. Greinke should get it, but the writers once gave the damn thing to Jack McDowell for cryin' out loud, so who knows?

For relaxing times, make it Takahashi time.

Cancel the candlelight vigil: the ballplayers who had money with Allen Stanford aren't going to get sued.

The Mets want to be in the Joel Piniero business.

Caveat Emptor on Pedro.

I take a second pass at the Twins' new uniforms.

Roald Amundsen: the Chase Utley of explorers. Discuss.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 11:48am

Monday, November 16, 2009

New Twins uniforms revealed

New house, new duds:

Plans for the new uniforms and logos unveiled today include:

Primary Home Uniform - The "Twins" script has been slightly altered and updated for 2010 and beyond.

Secondary Throwback Uniform - Twins players will wear a circa 1961 throwback uniform on Opening Day as well as every home Saturday during the 2010 season. The uniforms are modeled after the wool version worn during the team's first season in Minnesota.

Primary Road Uniform - Twins players will wear new solid grey road uniforms (no pinstripes) in 2010 featuring a "Minnesota" script inspired by the team's original "Minnesota" script found on the players jackets from 1961-1986.

Some pics available here. Some others here. Personally, I like the elimination of pinstripes on the road, which I think looks impossibly lame. Pinstripes = sharpness. Sharpness demands white. Pinstripes on gray looks terrible.

I also like the near elimination of the "M" cap (it's still available in an alternate cap). The TC is one of the coolest logos around. The more of that the better. And of course, as I've mentioned many times in the past, the M logo gives me flashbacks to 1987 and 1991, and those Twins teams bummed me out pretty terribly.

If they really wanted to be cool they would have eliminated the solid blue home alternate which never, ever, ever, ever, ever looks good. On any team. Anywhere. at any time. Solid jerseys that don't match the pants ought to be banned.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 4:28pm

Rookies of the Year: Bailey and Coghlan

Over at NBC I figured that Beckham and Happ would win it. I even forgot to mention Andrew Bailey in my first pass at it and had to go back and update. Shows you what my figuring is worth:

A's right-hander Andrew Bailey's rise from Minor League obscurity to Major League limelight turned historic Monday when he was named the 2009 American League Rookie of the Year.

and

The franchise with a knack for producing some of the best young talent in the Major Leagues has another gem to add to its resume -- Chris Coghlan.

That fact was evident through the rookie sensation's first season in the big leagues this year, but it was a point that was driven home on Monday afternoon - when the 24-year-old infielder-turned-outfielder took home National League Rookie of the Year honors from the Baseball Writers' Association of America.

I'll take Hanson and Beckham over both of them over the long term, but hey, that's not what the award is about.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 2:55pm

“The Official Major League Baseball World Series Film Collection”

If anyone is looking for something to buy me for Christmas:

"The Official Major League Baseball World Series Film Collection" (A&E, $229.95), a spectacular DVD set that contains 20 discs featuring extensive footage of 65 World Series from 1943 to 2008.

It comes packaged in a thick, elongated hard-cover book that chronicles many memorable World Series moments with a forward by multi-award winning sportscaster and avid baseball fan Bob Costas. The book is great but the discs, located in pockets throughout its hefty pages, are the big attractions.

"Thick, elongated hard"

"Bob Costas"

What's not to love?

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 1:27pm

Sign this petition

I've signed way less important petitions than this one.

To: Major League Baseball, MLB Network

We the undersigned humbly, and with all due respect, ask the MLB Network to air the June 12, 1970 game between the San Diego Padres and the Pittsburgh Pirates. On that day the Pirates' pitcher
Dock Phillip Ellis threw what was at the time the 3rd no-hitter in Pirates history and it was a seminal moment in baseball history. The fans would like to relive this moment and want to see it rerun on the MLB Network.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

Do your part for democracy here.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 1:01pm

My Morning in Exile

So I'm trying to decide if, upon leaving the legal job, I'm going to keep the law license active or let it slip into inactive status. On the one hand, letting it go inactive saves me several hundred dollars and about 15 hours sitting in a classroom taking continuing legal education classes between now and the end of December. On the other hand, not actually having my license active will prevent me from filing all of those nuisance lawsuits I had always envisioned slapping on people once I left the legal job. I mean sure, I could reactivate the license by filing some paperwork and paying a small fee, but that takes a few days. What happens if I get really angry and need to sue them RIGHT NOW?!

"He was a little poopy-pants the rest of the afternoon." This, surprisingly, is not a story about George Brett.

Andrew Zimbalist makes the case that the Yankees did not buy their championship. This would be a more impressive claim if it was a decade ago and people still believed everything Andrew Zimbalist says.

The Blue Jays traded a third baseman to the Reds a few months ago and got a third baseman in return. Now they may try to get a third baseman from the Reds. No word yet if they'll also try to get a third baseman from the Reds during spring training or at next summer's deadline. I kind of hope they do, though, because eventually they'd have to get to Sabo, right?

The weirdest thing about all of this is that before this morning I had no idea that Mike Ilitch's wife owned a casino. Remember back when Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle got banned from baseball for simply doing promotion crap with a casino long after they retired? The game, she is different now.

Rookies of the Year to be announced today. When are they gonna do the right thing and name the award after Bob Hamelin?

I wonder just how much GMs discount performances by NL players these days. Does everyone do this, or is it really like two or three actually running numbers? I have no clue. Anyone know how these conversations really go inside front offices?

Another career question: Starting in December, how am I supposed to answer when people ask me what I do for a living? It seems a little presumptuous of me to say "baseball writer." Roger Angell is a baseball writer. Joe Posnanski is a baseball writer. I snark on headlines and argue with people all day. At the same time, if I say "baseball blogger," about 97% of the people are going to respond with "that's . . .that's a job?" So many questions.

UPDATE: Mrs. Shyster is too good to comment among you heathens, but she did just email me and suggest that I answer thusly in response to such questions. This is why I love Mrs. Shyster.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 11:25am

Friday, November 13, 2009

Mr. GQ

So, like, I was building this prototype teleportation machine, and just as I was about to test it on Derek Jeter, the Unfrozen Caveman version of Johnny Damon accidentally fell into the transport pod. Total mess.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 3:57pm

“The New York Mets will be facilitating activities that directly violate international law”

If you were to tell me that a Major League team bumbled its way into an international incident, I would immediately say "The Mets. It was the Mets, right?" I mean, is there any other possible answer?

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 3:29pm

My Morning in Exile

Water on the moon? "The Lcross Mission" Noah Cross? Water where it should not naturally be? Forget it Jake . . .

Brent Mayne has the most sensible insight I've heard regarding signs since I saw the live recording of Five Man Acoustical Jam at the Trocadero. No, I wasn't there to see Tesla. I thought it was a Dead Milkmen show.

We all go a little mad sometimes.

The Nats are gonna pull a Belliard. If that doesn't work, they can try a Boeski, a Jim Brown, a Miss Daisy, two Jethros and a Leon Spinks, not to mention the biggest Ella Fitzgerald ever. Yeah, I know I've used that one before.

You know what would be cool? The Silver Surfer Awards. Wait, that's no good. Norrin Radd would just win it every year. Unless Torii Hunter discovers the Power Cosmic.

The Rangers can't afford a buck fifty for a Cherry Coke Zero, yet they want Vlad Guerrero. Whatever.

You're not gonna believe this, but Heyman says that Boras says that a Boras client is, like, super valuable and highly desirable. I know. I'm just as shocked as you are.

I don't know why those kitty cats were even nosin' around for water up there. Don't they know what happens to nosy fellows? Huh? No? Wanna guess? Huh? No?

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 1:15pm

Thursday, November 12, 2009

My Morning in Exile

When you have Wednesday off work, Thursday is Monday. Considering that Monday sucks and that I never really got the hang of Thursdays, I'm just really off my game today. Maybe I'd feel better if opposing counsel in one of my cases were to call me and say he was going to "take a meat axe" to me. Damn, that happened this morning too, and it only made me feel happy for a little while. Sigh.

You know you've done something wrong in this world when lying drug dealer who was once implicated in an alleged date-rape drug incident (and lied to police about it) sues you for defamation of character . . . and has the stronger case.

The whole Mauer-is-talking-to-the-Twins thing from yesterday? Nope. There's no there there. Which reminds me: he's not talking to Oakland either.

The only thing I could think that would be worse for a player than being released is to be traded to the Venezuelan League.

We interrupt this "Yankees Buy Everyone!" complaint-fest to report that the Angels may in fact be willing and able to keep their high profile free agents.

Seeing Derek Jeter in another team's uniform would be like, hell, I dunno, seeing Michael Jordan or Joe Montana playing for someone other than the Bulls and 49ers. Wait. Bad examples.

One day there will be only two categories of former Braves players: those who the Royals have signed, and those who died before they got the chance. Though I hear that Moore is willing to give Lefty Tyler a look-see.

I should totally set up a status conference in the case with the meat axe guy for November 30th.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 1:02pm

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Two thoughts on Marvin Miller

I wrote over at NBC this morning that I think Marvin Miller was a no-brainer for the Hall of Fame. Not everyone agrees with that. Not even some pretty damn reasonable people. Here are two perspectives. First Rob Neyer:

I mentioned this morning that I'm still an agnostic regarding Whitey Herzog's Hall of Fame candidacy. I suppose I'm also agnostic about Marvin Miller. Before you tear my head off, let me ask you one question: If you believe that Marvin Miller belongs, would you be comfortable with Scott Boras someday joining Miller? Because Boras, too, has been historically significant and reaped untold millions of dollars for the players.

Point taken, but doesn't the innovation trump mere exploitation? Isn't comparing Miller to Boras this like comparing Henry Ford and Lee Iacocca? Wait, that's not even fair. Iacocca at least developed the Mustang. Isn't that like comparing Ford and the CEO of Toyota? If there's an automobile Hall of Fame Ford's in it. The CEO of Toyota isn't.

Another perspective comes from NBC commenter Simon DelMonte (don't worry; he's one of the reasonable ones over there):

I'm as pro-union as they come in this day and age, the son of a proud member of the teachers union. And I usually agree with Marvin Miller when he gives interviews on the state of affairs in baseball. But I still feel uncomfortable about having him in the Hall. His accomplishments were off the field. Period. And just don't know if they helped the game. Helped the players, yes. The game? I don't think so.

Can I offer a compromise candidate in Curt Flood? Here is a brave man who changed the game as well, but was also a pretty good player. And someone who, unlike Miller, basically lost his career for his principles.

Well, for starters there are a lot of guys in the Hall whose accomplishments were "off the field," so that's a non-starter. I understand the thinking behind the "good for the players and not the game" argument, but I don't buy it. The game is radically different now than it was before free agency, I'll grant that. But I think it's a tall order to say that the game is worse off. More people watch it now. Everyone makes more money. The quality of play remains high. There is competitive imbalance, but is it any worse than what we saw during the alleged Golden Age? Are Royals fans really worse off than St. Louis Browns fans were? Wait, we can't answer that because there are no more St. Louis Browns.

As for Flood: if you're inclined to put him in the Hall of Fame, I can't see how you can argue against Miller. Miller was behind Flood's challenge in the first place. If failed in his case. Miller persisted and ultimately won with other players what could not be won with Flood alone. Ultimately they were after the same thing, and one succeeded where the other failed. Why honor the guy who failed instead of the one who succeeded? Put less harshly, why honor the name out in front of the challenge instead of the mastermind?

Ultimately my argument for Miller comes down to this: there were three times in baseball history where everything frickin' changed: the end of the deadball era, the integration of baseball and the advent of free agency. Marvin Miller was the force behind that third one. How can you not honor that?

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 4:28pm

My Morning in Exile

Sorry for the late Exile post, but I had the great fortune of taking a cat to be euthanized! Second one this year! On the bright side: the lone remaining cat has been on his absolute best behavior for the past two hours. Anyway:

I like Whitey Herzog, Billy Martin and Marvin Miller for the Hall. Which means that none of them will make it.

There's nothin' else goin' on, so why not argue over the DH? As soon as we get that sorted, we'll move on to easier subjects like religion and politics and abortion and stuff.

Varitek and other Red Sox stuff.

I want to say one word to you. Just one word. Yes, sir. Are you listening? Yes, I am. Genetics. Just how do you mean that, sir?

The Law of Conservation of Molinas in action.

Can we still call Dave Dombrowski a solid GM given that he has has Dontrelle Willis on the hook for $12 million, Jeremy Bonderman on the hook for $12.5 million and Nate Robertson on the hook for $10 million, but has to trade Edwin Jackson because he might make, like, $6 million?

R.I.P., Ringo. Watch your ass George.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 1:02pm

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

My Morning in Exile

Before we get to the posts, take a look at some amazing pictures of that Utah salt flat NASA tried to sucker us into believing was the moon forty years ago.

"If you look beyond the Yankees" there is no competitive balance problem in baseball. And if you leave out the killings, Washington has a very low crime rate!

There's a construction law case I worked on at my old firm that has been active since 2000 with no end in sight. The 2003 steroids testing raid is gaining.

There aren't many rallying cries less inspiring than "Bring back Riggleman!" but in this case it's probably the right call.

Right now I wouldn't bet against John Lackey winding up in the Bronx.

Varitek exercises his option. Sadly, he pulled it while exercising it and will be on the 15 day DL.

Mark Cuban says he'd buy the Dodgers if they were up for sale. If the McCourt battle gets as ugly as I suspect it will, he may actually look like a palatable option to Major League Baseball for the first time ever.

I wish the photo at the link would have focused more on the West Crater so we could see the Monolith. Wait -- It's buried 40 feet below the lunar surface near the crater Tycho. Forget I said anything.

UPDATE: The 2001 reference got me surfing, and I made it over to the "memorable quotes" section of the IMDB page for the sequel, "2010." This passage stood out:

Heywood Floyd: I'd love a hot dog.

Walter Curnow: Astrodome. Good hot dogs there.

Heywood Floyd: Astrodome? You can't grow a good hot dog indoors. Yankee Stadium. September. The hot dogs have been boiling since opening day in April. Now that's a hot dog.

Walter Curnow: The yellow mustard or the darker kind?

Heywood Floyd: The darker kind.

Walter Curnow: Very important.

It's not quite 2010, and neither of those stadiums exist anymore. I can't help but think the writers of the flick, back in 1984, thought "well, the Astrodome is totally futuristic, so it'll still be around 25 years from now. And Yankee Stadium is freakin' Yankee Stadium. Let's go with those references.!"

And while I'm rambling, allow me to go on record as absolutely loving "2010." No, 2001 didn't call out for a sequel -- quite the opposite actually -- and it's not as good as 2001, not does it even attempt to be. But it works on its own merits, and has a bunch of nifty performances by actors I really like. Lithgow and Scheider mostly, but the always welcome Bob Balaban as well. I probably watched that flick on HBO 100 times when I was a kid, and if it's ever on now -- usually SciFi or some other low rent channel -- I'll watch it all the way through again.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 11:20am

Don’t bring Griffey back Seattle

The Seattle Times' Larry Stone thinks that the Mariners should bring Ken Griffey Jr. back. There are many words, but it essentially boils down to this:

I believe Griffey still has something to offer. He can tickle Ichiro, bring laughter to the clubhouse, hit an occasional bomb and take one more crack at October.

Sounds great to me.

With the exception of the occasional bomb, he can do those things as a bench coach. And those occasional bombs are more than outweighed by his other liabilities. Just say no, Seattle.

Retire his number on opening day. Enshrine him in any Hall of Fame at your disposal. Offer him any job in the organization he wants this side of GM. But don't give the man a roster spot.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 10:20am

Monday, November 09, 2009

Jeff Pearlman continues to loathe his job

The working conditions are terrible. None of his colleagues do their job. The whole damn operation is a waste of time. I'm just waiting for the "I don't believe in nothin' no more, I'm goin' to law school!" post.

Not that I don't see where Pearlman is coming from. Press boxes are bad places to watch games. Reporters do ask inane questions. Athletes do give vapid answers. That whole scene is rather silly.

But rather than mope about it, Jeff, do something about it. Tell SI that you're done with the conventional beat and you want to cover stories differently. Tell them you want to eschew the box, dispense with the postgame interviews and ask the questions you're presumably not allowed to ask. You wonder why no one asks if Jay Cutler is overrated? Ask it yourself! You want to rain on the Bears' playoff pretensions? Do it!

But for God's sake, drop the pity party. Everyone has a job they hate from time to time. None of us like being away from our kids for work. All of us, however, sack the hell up and get on with it.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 5:13pm

Tom Brookens Sighting

You probably have to be in your mid-30s and had to have lived in Michigan in the mid-80s in order to care about this.

Anybody know what John Wockenfuss is up to?

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 4:49pm

Chalk pulls a Favre

Remember Dave Chalk's retirement from Bugs & Cranks last week? Well, he's takin' a mulligan.

You'll recall my bewilderment re: Dave's stated dissatisfaction over steroids and money and stuff ruining baseball, and wondering why that all of a sudden became a problem for him when it was nothing really new. He responds, with the upshot being that 2008-2009 were particularly bad in those departments, thus fueling his dissatisfaction. The substance is too long to blockquote, so click on through to read his explanation.

I like to see more baseball bloggers, not less, so good for Dave for taking a week and rethinking it all.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 2:10pm

My Morning in Exile

Twenty years ago today the Berlin Wall fell. I'm obviously not equipped to do the event historical justice in this space, so I'll share my own shallow personal remembrance: I was in the 11th grade, taking an advanced placement government and politics class. The teacher was way more interested in international relations stuff, however, so the syllabus and text for the class was premised almost exclusively on Cold War politics. With the fall of the wall, the entire lesson plan for the class was essentially mooted. It was at that moment that I realized "hey, maybe they're not teaching us everything we need to know in school."

Secondary remembrance: the fall of the Wall led directly to the Scorpions' late-career hit "Winds of Change." Who would have thunk that a band who once put out an album called "Virgin Killer" with a cover depicting a nude pre-teen girl covered in broken glass would one day tell us everything we needed to know about the thawing of NATO-Warsaw Pact relations? Anyway:

The Phillies say no to Pedro Feliz's option; may activate a time machine and get the exact same player five years younger in the form of Adrian Beltre in free agency.

Some McCourtenfreude from the Boston Globe.

No, Sammy Sosa is not doing an homage to that awesome Eddie Murphy SNL skit.

Lackey to Milwaukee? Eh, why not? It's not the craziest thing Olney has said recently.

The Rangers have pitching depth from which to deal. Hopefully for them it will work out better than all that catching depth they had last year.

One definition of happiness: receiving a case schedule from a court and realizing that you'll be long gone before any of the hard stuff has to be done.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 11:38am

Friday, November 06, 2009

Great Moments in Plagiarization

ESPN plagiarised -- and then un-plagiarised and apologized for plagiarising -- a story on my NBC colleague Mike Florio's Pro Football Talk blog. Best part of it is the first comment on ESPN's article after the correction was made:

Jesus... at least plagiarize a legitimate site... you're now poaching off of a failed lawyer's sports blog

That works for me on so many levels.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 4:24pm

The Nats lay people off

From Washington Business Journal:

The Washington Nationals, which finished its 2009 season with the worst record in baseball, recently laid off several people in the team's executive offices, according to sources close to the team. Two former employees, who asked not to be identified, admitted to being laid off by the team.

One former employee, who worked as an account executive in the sales department, said he was let go last month. “There wasn’t much to it,” he said in a phone interview on Friday. “If you lose that many games there’s going to be changes to any organization, on and off the field. I think I was just part of that downsizing.” He said he was “definitely one of several” laid off in his department, which he said was made up of about 15 people. “We were told they were just downsizing and they basically left it at that . . . it was almost like a last in, first out kind of thing.”

So I guess that means the other person let go was Strasburg?

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 4:05pm

McCourt Update

I didn't get to it today due to other obligations, but you don't need me when you have Josh to tell you all that has happened. Obviously the most notable thing in all of this is that the person who will be overseeing the case is named Commissioner Gordon.

It's nice to see him back to work after what happened to Barbara.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 3:43pm

My Morning in Exile

For reasons that aren't important, I took out a supplemental disability insurance policy a few years ago. I can't remember the terms and don't have the policy handy, so I got on the phone with my broker this morning and asked him if the fact that I'm not going to be a lawyer anymore makes a difference for my coverage. I won't bore you with the details, but the conversation ended with "well, you're still basically going to be sitting in front of a computer and typing all day, so it's not like anything new is happening . . ." Nothin' like that kind of ego boost to power you through your day!

The Indians name the Pride of Mt. Gilead, Ohio their new pitching coach. Why they want the late Tom Poston as their pitching coach is beyond me, but given what he has to work with there, being alive wouldn't make much of a difference.

Your offseason calendar. It's kind of like your work calendar: filled with pointless meetings.

Joe Girardi may change his number to 28. Hold firm, Shelly Duncan! I mean, c'mon, what are they gonna do if you don't give it up? Release you? Wait, don't answer that question . . .

Seventy nine players filed for free agency yesterday. The rush to sign Eric Milton to a multi-year deal begins.

You'll be shocked to hear that Curt Schilling has an opinion about Pedro Martinez.

Finally, at least a Dairy Queen has Dilly Bars. What's Houston got?

It may be quiet this afternoon. I have all manner of administrative hooey I need to deal with. I've been leaving jobs at a fairly regular clip for 20 years now, and the paperwork just gets more arduous.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 10:39am

Deep Thoughts: Tim Lincecum Edition

I'm sure you've all seen this by now:

An officer approached Lincecum's 2006 Mercedes and smelled marijuana as the pitcher rolled down his window. Schatzel said Lincecum immediately complied with a request to hand over the drug and a marijuana pipe from the car's center console.

Lincecum pitched a two-hit shutout last June 29th, but this was his first career one-hitter.

Congratulations, Tim!

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 7:23am

Thursday, November 05, 2009

Bit dramatic, ain’t it?

I'd like to think that the announcement by Bugs & Cranks' Dave Chalk that he is quitting the baseball blogging business is dry humor, and that his leaving B&C is occasioned by another offer or a lack of free time or something as opposed to truly being disgusted with the sport. If not, it's simply baffling. He's been blogging about baseball for less than three years. None of the factors he cites -- high payroll teams having advantages, steroids -- came onto the scene anew during that period.

If he is being straight-up about it, it just reinforces what I've always told people who ask me about blogging: I don't care if it's baseball or politics or tech or sitcoms or the self-indulgent, overrated novels of Susan Sontag. If you're going to seriously blog about something, you had better love the subject matter or at the very least find your peace with its flaws, because you're going to be living and breathing it.

Good luck with whatever you're moving on to, David.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 2:08pm

Judge to Jamie McCourt: No you can not have your job back

Not yours:

A court commissioner has denied Jamie McCourt's bid to be reinstated as the chief executive of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Superior Court Commissioner Scott Gordon ruled Thursday in Los Angeles there is no state law to support her bid.

I hate it when judges cite B.S. reasons for ruling against you. Stuff like "there's no state law to support your arguments" and "your pleading was a month late" and "you're not wearing any pants, Mr. Calcaterra, please cover yourself before I throw you in jail, you utter disgrace of an attorney."

You know, just by way of example.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 1:43pm

My Morning in Exile

Not sure why I'm writing this -- I'm guessing most readers are off work today for Guy Fawkes Day and everything -- but for those of you in essential services . . .

Did the Yankees buy their championship? You may not be surprised to learn that this one has sparked quite a debate among economically illiterate people over at the Blue Network!

Jimmy Rollins thinks the Phillies are still the better team. If you don't believe him, he has a bunch of video evidence -- all on Beta -- to back it up!

A trip around the blogosphere for morning after reactions. Not surprisingly there are disparate opinions about all of this. Abortions for some, miniature American flags for others!

The goggles! They do . . . something!

The McCourts go to court. They didn't ask me, but if I were Jamie's shyster, I'd move for a bad court thingee the moment Frank opened his mouth.

Glad the series ended last night. If it had gone to Game 7, I'd have a living room half full of baseball fans and half full of people commemorating the unravelling of the Gunpowder Plot! AWK-ward!

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 12:35pm

The Yankees and the DUI checkpoint

This story is mostly about Joe Girardi helping an accident victim on his way home from the ballpark last night, but this is all kinds of fun:

Police were in the area conducting a driving while intoxicated checkpoint on the parkway. In fact, about 15 minutes earlier, Girardi had passed through a driving while intoxicated checkpoint on the parkway. Cristiano, who was working the checkpoint, congratulated him on his first win as a manager and waved him through. He hadn't been the only Yankees member to pass by the checkpoint. Pitcher Andy Pettitte also passed through earlier.

"He came through with a smile," Cristiano said.

Cristiano, a self-described huge Yankees fan, said she hadn't expect to see either one of them again.

Of course it makes perfect sense that Girardi and Pettitte were waved through with a smile. I mean, it's not like there was any video of them drowning in booze from less than two hours prior . . .

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 11:47am

And That Happened: World Series

Yankees 7, Phillies 3: Champs. You saw it, so no need for me to describe it. I'll just offer some observations:

Andy Pettitte was gutsy and successful.

Pedro, while unsuccessful, was just as gutsy. He certainly knew before anyone -- and probably well before the game started -- that he had nothing last night. He's Pedro, though, and he did his best to figure out a way to work around it. It's weird: for a Hall of Fame pitcher, I've always thought that Pedro's character as a pitcher was better defined by his losses than his wins. In the 2003 ALCS, last night, and many other times, I've come away strangely more impressed by him when he leaves a game in defeat, and I'm not sure why that is.

Matsui. What can you really say? For a guy who often looks like he's in pain when he's hitting, he made it look rather easy last night. He was as good an MVP choice as anyone else.

Factoid I found on ESPN: "Wednesday's clincher marked the sixth time New York has defeated the defending champ in the World Series." I'm not going to look it up, but I'll say the Phillies last night, the Braves in 1996, the Braves in 1958, the Dodgers in 1956, Cardinals in 1943, and I have no idea before that. Anyone?

Nine years ago is when Jeter, Posada, Rivera and Pettitte last won it all. I know that beyond them there has been massive roster turnover since 1996, but I'm struggling to come up with an example of a team with at least a handful of core players winning World Series outside the context of a continuing dynasty. This would be like Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford hanging around to win one with the 1971 Yankees, or Chipper, Maddux and Smoltz doing it in 2004. I suppose this is mostly a function of them being so young when they were winning them back in the 90s, but it is kind of odd to think about it.

I suppose I could go on all day. And really, there won't be much other news happening, so I probably will. For now, congratulations to the 2009 New York Yankees, champions of baseball.

151 days until Opening Day.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 4:40am

Wednesday, November 04, 2009

Viva Democracy

With perks like these, you'd think the folks in Congress wouldn't beat baseball up over steroids and stuff as often as they do. I mean really, isn't a bribe worth anything in Washington anymore?

Tickets for Wednesday's World Series game are nearly impossible to come by at face value. But that isn't the case if you are a member of Congress or one of their aides.

Federal lawmakers and people who work for them have gotten their hands on scores of tickets to the sold-out World Series games this year between the New York Yankees and Philadelphia Phillies courtesy of a perk not available to the public.

Major League Baseball and the teams sell a limited number of prime seats to lawmakers and congressional aides at face value, often hundreds of dollars less than the going rate.

(thanks to reader Rich C. for the link)

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 2:02pm

My Morning in Exile

Just want to thank everyone for all the kind words in my little ego thread yesterday. It's humbling to say the least. I feel like Johnny Fever after he told people to go throw garbage on the steps of city hall and they actually, you know, did it. I'll try to get back into my usual snarky-ass ways as the day progresses, but I'll admit: it would be way easier if Bailey Quarters were here to help me get my mojo back like she helped Johnny in that episode. Alas.

Whenever I get mad at someone who won't engage me or doesn't care what I think, I fantasize that I have them in the witness box and I'm cross examining them within an inch of their lives. While it isn't anything that extreme in this case, here's me giving Mike Lupica the treatment.

My above reference to mojo notwithstanding, I'm pretty sure mojo is a b.s. concept.

Who is Manuel going to go to if the Phillies have a lead late? Lidge? Madson? Bedrosian? McGraw?

The Yankees aren't so dumb that they'd actually give Johnny Damon more money based on one heads up play, are they?

Mattingly may be the heir apparent in L.A. Time will tell whether that role will play out more Prince Williamish or more Czarevich Alexei Nikolaevichish.

Chase Utley is not the best second baseman ever. And despite what the commenters may say, I DO sing better than Albert Einstein did. Prove me wrong.

BTW: Happy 59th birthday to Markie Post. (Call me).

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 11:00am

Great Moments in Being Vicente Padilla

Ladies and gentleman, the man on which Joe Torre depended to stave off elimination in the NLCS:

Dodgers pitcher Vicente Padilla accidentally shot himself in the right leg, the Dodgers confirmed Tuesday, but the wound is believed to be minor.

Whatever. I couldn't get too mad about that, even if I was a Dodgers fan. What I can't abide, however, is the fact that one of my NBC colleagues stole the Warren Zevon reference I was going to drop. I'm not going to get a chance like that again. At least until some ballplayer loses their head in a war in the Congo.

I haven't officially signed my NBC deal yet, but rest assured, prior to doing so I will check the fine print to make sure that I have the authority to have Harkins killed if something like this happens again.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 5:31am

Tuesday, November 03, 2009

Programming Note

When I started writing ShysterBall in the spring of 2007, the idea was to give myself a place to be where I could escape the stress and unpleasantness of my legal career, if only for the briefest of moments. As time went on, it began to consume more and more of my waking hours and, in all honesty, interfering pretty significantly with that legal career. No, I never dropped the ball on a case, but it has been a struggle. I mean really, how is someone supposed to prepare for an oral argument when Roger Clemens is testifying before Congress? I'd like to say that I eventually managed to find balance with all of this, but that would be a lie. My life hasn't been in balance since at least 2006. Maybe earlier. Something has to be done. So I'm doing it:

I'm quitting the law. Starting November 30th I will be writing about baseball full time for NBC Sports.com.

Obviously this wasn't a unilateral decision on my part. NBC has decided that they want me all-in on Circling the Bases, and that's not the kind of thing you have to ask me twice. The people over there have been fantastic to me since I started moonlighting back in April. They've never censored a word I've written. They've never declared a topic off-limits. Their instructions to me when I started were to make some f*cking noise, and they've allowed me to do that non-stop since. When they asked me to do it full time, it was a complete no-brainer. I don't yet know how it's going to all work out -- the enormity of this is just starting to sink in -- but to say I'm excited would be something of an understatement.

Q: But Craig! Where am I going to go for my daily ATH fix come April?!

A: Right here. Well, to THT at least, because NBC has been good enough to allow me to keep doing ATH and posting it at The Hardball Times (see above about NBC being totally cool). It likely won't be in ShysterBall, because the ShysterBall name is going to go into mothballs. Right now the smart money is on it appearing as a daily post at THT Live, but we'll give you lots of advanced notice once the good Mr. Studeman and I figure it out. The upshot, though, is that everyone involved realizes just how valuable an outlet and how outstanding the readership and community is at THT, and no one wants to mess with a good thing. Day-to-day blogging will be at NBC, but ATH will continue to appear at The Hardball Times.

Q: But Craig! How can you subject yourself to the kind of abuse you get from the commenters over there every day?

A: I've learned a lot in a short period of time. I've also noticed a slight uptick in commenter quality as time has gone on. I credit many of you for that, as I have been seeing a lot of familiar commenting handles migrate over to NBC as the year has progressed. I hope that continues. And I'm sure that it can. None of you are the type who can't handle more baseball in your lives, so I'm sure you can make a point to be good boys and girls and read your THT, and then come over to NBC to see what I'm up to.

Q: So, like, what does this all mean for you?

A: I don't know. No shaving. Pants optional. Walking kids to the bus stop. Cheaper coffee. More time to go to the gym. Occasional cushion forts in the living room. I'm sure it's going to be an adjustment process. I'll ask Neyer what he does with his days.

OK, enough self-indulgent crap, we have almost a month to get all of that in. In the meantime, let me offer some thanks to some people.

Thanks Repoz, because without your generous links, no one starts reading ShysterBall in the first place;

Thanks Rob, because without your generous links, no one starts reading ShysterBall in anything approaching significant numbers. If I had a dime for every time someone has said "I found this blog via Neyer . . ." well, I'd have a shitload of dimes. Oh, it's also worth noting that I'm not even writing a word about baseball without your inspiration;

Thanks Studes for taking the chance on me and making me a part of the THT family. The sketchy, ne'er-do-well cousin of that family to be sure, but a great family all the same. It took a lot to give my ramblings a sheen of respectability, but THT did the job;

Thanks Aaron Gleeman and Matthew Pouliot for suggesting me to the NBC brass when you were getting CTB off the ground last spring. Before then, the only thing NBC knew about me came via the copious amount of Markie Post fanmail I've sent in over the years, and the attendant restraining order hearings. It was nice to be able to make a second impression;

Thanks Jason, and Ron and Josh and Josh (the other one) and Jay and Sara and Mark and Scott and lar and Mike and Tim and Keith and Joe and every other member of the bloggy neighborhood who has linked to and been linked by ShysterBall, all of which has added immensely to the quality of the proceedings; and finally;

Thanks ShysterBall readers of both the commenting and the lurking persuasion. I could bring more bloggy noise than anyone, but it's worthless if there's no one there to read it. I'm not the statcounter obsessive I used to be, but whenever I've lost the will to write, I've checked in to look at the numbers. When I see people who have way better things to do with their lives click and click and click like you've been doing for so damn long, I'm reinvigorated.

And away we go . . .

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 1:52pm

The McCourt divorce: messier than you could possibly imagine

I may dabble, but Josh Fisher is the go-to source for all of your McCourtly goodness. Today, Josh talks about just how much of a clusterf*ck the Dodgers' sale was, and why it will make the McCourt divorce an even bigger hassle than most of us currently realize:

So, if you're counting at home, the above adds up to $421 million in financing...for a $371 million purchase. That, friends, is a little scary. And there's more. In May 2005, McCourt announced a new, $250 million 25-year note which took out B of A and what remained of the debt to Fox (after the foreclosure on the Boston property). This increased the debt load to $521 million on a $371 million purchase. This financing, known as a private placement, was provided by an unidentified group of institutional investors, such as pension funds and insurance companies. The terms of the loan--5.66% fixed for 25 years--are relatively favorable to McCourt. The collateral for this new loan was reportedly the 300 acres of real estate surrounding Dodger Stadium--not the club itself. Importantly, one of the provisions of the private placement was that control of the Dodgers would not change hands.

In April 2009, Forbes estimated the value of the franchise (including surrounding land) as $722 million with a debt total a little shy of $420 million. Where does that $420 million come from? We don't know the status of the $75 million debt to major league baseball. My guess is that the McCourts further leveraged the land around Dodger Stadium, bringing the private placement debt to at least $345 million.

That is just a snippet of an insanely fascinating (at least to people like Josh and me) post about Dodgers, Inc. The upshot of which is that the McCourts don't have nearly as much money as Jamie McCourt's filings would have you believe, and that unwinding all of this is going to be a monster headache. So much so that if I were one of the McCourts, I'd consider some kind fo truce as soon as possible that would keep joint ownership to some degree rather than risk all of the creditors calling in the notes.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 1:10pm

My Morning in Exile

Things I wrote while realizing that no matter who wins this series, one of the managers is going to get more guff than he probably deserves:

Are McCarver and Buck rooting for anyone? Is this a ripoff of Jay's previous post on the subject or just an homage? Do you get more angry comments and click-throughs if you put your post titles in the form of a question?

The post which will cause people to come to a baseball blog and talk about how much they hate baseball. It's a dynamic I'll never understand.

When Bob Gibson was young he'd walk to the ballpark, uphill, both ways, in a driving blizzard. He'd get paid five bees a start, and he was THANKFUL FOR THE OPPORTUNITY.

Bam-Bam!

Jamie to the Dodgers: "Get out of my divorce!"

Baseball makes noises about maybe kinda sorta wanting to stop the mound meetings. Good luck. I've been trying to stop meetings for 11 years now and I've had no luck.

Not that guff is the worst thing a guy can take. Indeed, on the "taking" scale, guff is far preferable to grief, crap and its more colorful permutations. Really, with the exception of "rebop" guff is probably the best thing you can expect to take under the circumstances.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 11:22am

From the WTF department

This video is better without any intro.

I would love to see one of these specifically geared toward every single team.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 9:30am

And That Happened: World Series

Phillies 8, Yankees 6: Jimmy Rollins on the win: "We didn't have a choice. It was either go home and watch football and college basketball or extend the season." Somewhere Cole Hamels is whimpering. He really likes college basketball. Other random thoughts:

Braves fans have long known -- and lamented -- how awesome Chase Utley is, so it's nice that the rest of the country is getting a chance to see how we feel every time he kicks our butts.

The not-so-good Cliff Lee showed up, but lucky for Phillies fans, the really-not-so-good A.J. Burnett did too. Credit the oh-my-god-you-suck Phil Coke with an assist.

A three-run lead entering the ninth and the Phillies don't use their closer, Brad Lidge? What? Has something occurred that has caused Charlie Manuel to lose confidence in him? Isn't Lidge automatic? Has anything else odd taken place since I went into that coma in November 2008?

I'm assuming it's Pettitte v. Martinez in Game 6, but since Happ hasn't pitched, he could go in Game 6 with Pedro going in a Game 7, thereby (a) bypassing the less-than-motivated Cole Hamels; and (b) setting up the possibility of a legendary final achievement for a legendary pitcher. Really, I couldn't give a rat's patootie about the Phillies, but how awesome would it be to see Pedro Martinez beat the Yankees with some stellar performance in Game 7? I mean, sure, Yankees fans and Cole Hamels would commit suicide, but everyone else would freak the hell out.

Finally, regarding that Hamels business, it's never good to have a guy make some unfortunate and distracting comments. Thankfully his teammates are there to pick him up.

Today is the last off day before the season is over. Can't decide if that's a good thing (no more waiting around a whole day for baseball) or a bad thing (we're so close to months of waiting around for baseball).

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 4:43am

Monday, November 02, 2009

My Morning in Exile

Lots of cross-pollination between NBC and THT this morning, as every time I wrote something in one place, someone would tell me something interesting and new about it in the other. Who says that the mainstream media and new media can't get along?

Two posts on Damon's steal. One bringing the hyperbole (an ATH regurgitation, really) and one tempering things a bit. Both of these posts were basically co-written by commenters, which puts me in mind of that great T.S. Eliot quote.

Robin Yount may have corked his bat. No one will probably care. If he had been found out to be an HGH user, people would freak. Which is weird since neither cork nor HGH does anything to help a dude play baseball better.

Michael Weiner holds forth on the great issues of the day.

Milton Bradley could be a Ranger again. Someone please let me know if we're getting do-overs on everything else that happened during the winter of 2008-09, because I have a lot of things I need to revisit.

So you're telling me there's a chance... *YEAH!*

Lots of legal work today, so there's a chance this afternoon will be light going. Must do something about that . . . .

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 10:33am

Quote of the Day: Johnny Damon

In Lupica's column, via CTB reader comeoneman:

"What were you doing going to third?" Damon was asked in the Yankee clubhouse.

Johnny Damon smiled and said, "Trying to keep (Lidge) from throwing a slider."

And in case you've missed the comments in ATH this morning, eagle-eyed and elephant-brained ShysterBall readers recall that Willie Mays and Brandon Phillips both pulled that play off before, stealing against anti-McCovey and anti-Dunn shifts. Please let me know of any others.

Not that it still wasn't totally cool to see it happen live.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 10:18am

And That Happened: World Series

Yankees 7, Phillies 4: On the one hand, the double steal by Damon in the 9th doesn't really matter, right? He'd be on second base before the A-Rod hit and still would have scored, even if someone had thought to cover third. On the other hand, Brad Lidge was on the mound, and that guy is something less than grace under pressure. You know he was worked up about that play when he hit Teixeira, and you have to figure he was still thinking about it when he threw the pitch to A-Rod.

But that's boring post-hoc analysis. As it happened, all I could think was "WOW!" I have no horse in this race, but I stood up and shouted at my TV when Damon took off from second, just as amazed at what was happening as I was amazed at how quickly Damon reacted, realizing that there was no one at third and that he had the edge in the footrace. My next thought was "man, they've been playing baseball for more than 150 years, so you'd think everything that has happened could happen, and then something like THIS happens." I'm guessing some guy will dig deep somewhere today and find an account of this happening before, but the fact that he'll have to dig is testament enough to that play.

But maybe it hasn't happened. Think about the perfect storm of weirdness that has to occur for that play to happen: (1) the overshift has to be on with the third baseman covering the play, just, like they had on for Teixeira; (2) someone has to be stealing with an overshift on, which by definition means that someone is attempting a steal when a fierce pull hitting lefty is at the plate, which is usually a low-percentage play; and (3) a defensive brain fart, to the extent the pitcher not covering third on a stolen base -- something which doesn't come up too often -- can be considered a brain fart. If I had to guess, I'd say that someone got a double steal awarded to them on a bad scorer's call at some point, when an error really should have been recorded. My guess is that it happening like Damon did it has never happened before.

Anyway, it's 3-1 now, with Cliff Lee on tap. My Yankees in 6 pick looks reasonably safe right now. Unless things like momentum and statements and dramatic turning points and all of that mean anything, in which case New York takes it tonight.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 6:29am

Friday, October 30, 2009

Pearlman on McGwire

Jeff Pearlman brings the Mark McGwire sanctimony:

Worst of all, however, McGwire was a baseball thief. At the very moment his 341-foot home run landed behind the outfield fence, he robbed Roger Maris of the most important record in professional sports. He robbed the Maris family of future income from 61-related merchandising and events. He robbed the Hall of Fame -- which swooped up McGwire memorabilia as if it were free Twinkies -- of its credibility, he robbed those fans who spent hundreds of dollars for a ticket in order to witness history and he robbed thousands upon thousands of kids of a seemingly genuine role model.

If the baseball record book is the sport's Holy Bible, than McGwire is a 3-year old armed with a permanent marker. The damage is not merely done -- it is un-erasable. (Of course, along by such analogous measures, Barry Bonds is a 3-year-old with a permanent marker, a torch and a vat of gasoline).

Pearlman often writes how disgusted he is with what baseball has become. I can't help but think that if he hadn't had such a ridiculously idealistic notion of what it was in the first place, he never would have crashed so hard to begin with.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 2:56pm

Great Moments in Niche Blogging

Reader and Dodger fan Josh Fisher has found his bloggy calling. It's called Dodger Divorce. But allow Josh to explain it:

Greetings, Dodger fans, and a pleasant afternoon to you, wherever you may be. Welcome to Dodger Divorce, a blog designed to be your one-stop shop for news and insight into the McCourt divorce and how it will affect the Boys in Blue.

If you're a Dodger fan, I presume that you'll want this blog to run out of content as soon as possible. Based on what we've seen in the last week, however, I see no danger of that happening.

Good luck, Josh!

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 1:58pm

My Morning in Exile

As brushes with celebrity go, this is pretty good. Not as good as that time I was at the urinal next to a totally wasted Marshall Faulk at the Bellagio during the Rams' bye-week in the 2001-02 playoffs, put pretty good.

Yankee Stadium has been quiet . . . too quiet [arrow flies into back; keels over dead in front of his second in command; rest of calvary unnerved]

Jeter calls his two-strike bunt attempt "dumb." If my experience is any guide, Jeter fans are really going to let Jeter have it for criticizing Jeter like that.

Great ratings so far. And an exciting Series for pitchingphiles like me.

I think the Red Sox are putting on some Kabuki theater when it comes to the Jason Bay negotiations.

Leave A-Rod alone.

Some more bad calls last night. Though to be fair, neither of which would have been noticed if it weren't for the really bad ones earlier in the postseason. Bonus: I use a different permutation of the hacky "Empire Strikes Back" thing in the headline. I'm so damn clever I ought to be made King Clever, ruler of all of Cleverland.

The next night, also at the Bellagio, I saw Fred Schneider of the B52s dining alone at Circo. If you made a list of 1000 celebrities who you'd expect to see dining alone, would Fred Schneider ever be on it? I figured that the "Love Shack" video was one of his home movies.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 11:19am

And That Happened: World Series

Yankees 3, Phillies 1: The Empire Strikes Back. Sorry, that was totally hacky. I haven't looked, but I'm guessing that line is being used by no less than two dozen outlets this morning. Anyone that can find them and make a note of it in the comments gets bonus points. Anyway:

In the copious back and forth I had with Phillies fans in my "it's not time to panic yet, Yankees" post, almost everyone said that Burnett would get lit up last night because, well, I don't know exactly why. Yes, the guy was a bit erratic down the stretch, but he was still an above average pitcher this season, totally capable of dropping a nice performance like this one last night. Teixeira and Matsui shaking off the cobwebs was welcome too. And for the "good outcomes don't mean good decisions were made" file, how about Molina picking off Werth and Posada hitting that pinch hit RBI? I bet Burnett still has good stuff and wins last night even if Posada was behind the plate, but with it breaking down the way it did, Girardi will probably get some genius points today, for whatever they're worth.

Ah, Pedro. I love the guy. Like I said over at NBC, I hoped like hell that he would be able to catch some 1999 lightning in a bottle. He didn't quite do that -- who could? -- but he gave a solid and gutsy performance, showing all of the smarts and guile he's always had, even if he doesn't have the velocity anymore. But really, if you had told anyone before the game that he'd throw over 100 pitches, lasting into the seventh and giving up only two runs before his exit, you would have assumed a Philly win, right? He was just met with a better performance by his counterpart. That happens.

I can't tell you how much I've been enjoying this World Series so far. I'm a pitching guy, and we're four for four in solid starting pitching performances. Here's hoping it keeps up.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 5:38am

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Frozen Ropes and Dying Quails

You may remember The Baseball Project, which was a supergroup of sorts (R.E.M.'s Peter Buck being the biggest name) that put out an album of baseball-related songs last year called "Frozen Ropes and Dying Quails." I had it in my "must acquire and listen to" file but lost track of it. MooseinOhio had his ears on last night and heard it featured on NPR's World Cafe last night. Interviews with the principals and some of the music.

A good time killer before tonight's game.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 3:12pm

Phillies trying to end World Series drought

Ya gotta believe:

The last time the Philadelphia Phillies brought a World Series title back to the City of Brotherly Love, the nation’s financial sector was in complete ruin, the cost of a gallon of milk was only $2.74, fans watched the Fall Classic while huddled around their slightly-less-streamlined high-definition television sets, and Philadelphia slugger Ryan Howard was just 28 years old.

This week Howard, 29, hopes to lead the Phillies to their first World Series championship in more than 360 long days and end a title drought that has been punctuated by several embarrassing losses, including a 2009 opening-day defeat by the Atlanta Braves and a June loss to the Atlanta Braves. During its infamous dry spell, the team has also come up short twice, winning both an NLDS and an NLCS title but having absolutely no World Series ring to show for it.

To put into perspective just how long the Phillies have gone without a championship, the earth has almost made one full orbit of the sun since the franchise last paraded through downtown Philadelphia holding the famed Commissioner’s Trophy.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 3:01pm

Great Moments in World Series History

A 5-0 Phillies lead has Mayor Bloomberg snoozing, Bernie Williams happy.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 1:50pm

22 milliseconds = $850K

A big products liability award for the family of a dead American Legion pitcher and against the maker of an aluminum bat company:

Attorneys for Hillerich & Bradsby Co. argued any other bat would not have hit the ball differently; in fact, they said, most bats on the market at the time would have struck the ball harder. Patch’s death was a tragic accident, they said. The defense lawyers declined comment after the verdict was read.

Baseballs hit with aluminum bats, such as the one used in that American Legion game, only give pitchers milliseconds to respond in a defensive stance, the plaintiffs said. Plaintiff’s attorney Joe White said the average time needed by a pitcher to defend a batted ball is 400 milliseconds. Patch had 378 milliseconds to respond, he said.

I've never read the pleadings in this case and I'm not a products lawyer, so I have no idea if this is a crazy verdict or not. I will say, however, that I'm pretty dubious about such claims in general. And I say that even though I'm generally anti-aluminum bat.

UPDATE: to clarify: my general position on this is that aluminum bats are either inherently safe with proper use or inherently unsafe and are incapable of proper use that won't cause injury. The presence or absence of a warning, or a milisecond difference between reaction times off of various aluminum bats does not seem like it would render the bat either safe or unsafe to use. As such, these kinds of bats should either be banned, or else we should accept comebackers to the mound as accidents, however unfortunate they might be.

(link via BTF)

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 12:47pm

My Morning in Exile

Columbus, Ohio has the highly annoying habit of scheduling trick-or-treating on nights other than Halloween. They call it "beggar's night" and after 18 years in this town, I've still never heard an adequate explanation for why kids can't go door-to-door on the 31st. Some have suggested non-interference with high school or college football, but they move it even when Halloween falls on a Monday-Thursday. Some have claimed that, many years ago, Columbus held some city-wide Halloween party on the 31st and they wanted people to be able to do both, but no such beast exists today. There's really no good explanation. My suburb actually does it on the 31st most years, but this year they're falling in with Columbus. So we go trick-or-treating with the kids tonight, 6pm-8pm, followed by a good hour of trying to bring my children down from their sugar highs before bed.

So I guess what I'm saying is, no one email me with mid-game spoilers, because I'm going to be DVRing that bad boy and watching it late. In the meantime:

The post in which I write "don't panic" in large friendly letters on the cover.

Pedro is probably going to get shelled tonight.

I can't decide if I'm more surprised that FOX did nothing to make me angry last night or more angry that I have nothing to be angry about today.

ESPN's Howard Bryant has no sense of decency, sir. At long last he has no sense of decency.

Tim Hudson is about to agree to a three-year extension with the Braves. Frank Wren trades the wrong superfluous starter in 3 . . .2 . . .1

Omar Minaya is a dead man walking.

And if anyone cares, my daughter is dressing up like a witch, my son is dressing up like a construction worker, and my wife and I are dressing up like two suburban parents carrying travel mugs filled with liquor around the neighborhood while hoping nobody notices.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 11:57am

Now that’s a game story

Those of you who recall an era when game strories weren't mere regurgitations of the box score will enjoy Josh Levin's game story over at Slate:

On this night, the slim Phillie's casual brilliance outshines the grunting effort of his hefty ex-Indians teammate CC Sabathia. Despite a recurrent inability to spot his pitches, the Yankees starter kept every Phillie off the scoreboard excepting the brilliant, lefty-hitting second baseman Chase Utley. Down to his last strike in each of his first three plate appearances, Utley coaxed a walk and yanked two solo home runs. Utley's first shot comes with his left hand off the bat, a looping parabola that drops over Yankee Stadium's short right field porch. The second, which extends the Phillies' lead to 2-0, gets half as high off the ground and travels seemingly twice as far to deep right-center, leaving grunts and gasps in its wake.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 9:50am

And That Happened: World Series

Phillies 6, Yankees 1: Cliff Lee looked like Neo on top of the building at the end of the Matrix. Like the game slowed down just for him and he could see everything in ten different ways while the Yankees were stuck in their little three dimension world. With the exception of a couple of fat pitches, CC Sabathia wasn't bad himself, but Chase Utley deposited both of those fat pitches in the seats.

If you're the Yankees, you can't really worry too much about Sabathia's fat pitches or especially what Lee just did to you. He's good. You knew he was good. You knew that he is head and shoulders above the rest of the Phillies rotation and that losing to him is no dishonor. What you do worry about, however, is the fact that neither Phil Hughes nor David Robertson could keep it close, because Burnett and Pettitte are going to need a good bullpen behind them even more than Sabathia did, and right now that pen ain't getting the job done.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 5:38am

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Neyer: Ryan Howard is basically Shin-Soo Choo

There have been a lot of people who have followed in Rob Neyer's footsteps over the years, but there still isn't anyone better at writing stuff that pisses off mainstream baseball writers:

Ryan Howard is pretty good. I mean, he's no Shin-Soo Choo. But pretty good, for sure.

You probably think I'm just some snot-nosed blogger trying to make a name for myself.

You're right. After all, it's patently ridiculous to suggest that a Cleveland Indian who's unknown to all but the most rabid fantasy owners should even be mentioned in the same breath with a Philadelphia Phillie who has led the National League in RBIs in three of the last four seasons.

If you don't know where Rob goes with this next, well, you're just not familiar with his work.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 3:02pm

IIATMS v. Wezen-Ball

It's not as bad as Sophie's Choice, but picking between Jason and lar in their blog network's awards voting is kinda sorta like picking between your kids. Your baseball-obsessed, sloughing off from work, probably-got-no-family-life-to-speak-of-because-they're-reading-old-Baseball Digests-or-trying-to-hide-their-man-love-for-Derek-Jeter kids.

Each are nominated for "Best Baseball Blog." Jason is also nominated for "Blog of the Year." Vote early and vote often.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 2:47pm

Frank Fires Back

Well, it was technically the Dodgers themselves who filed the latest brief, this one telling the divorce court -- quite reasonably, mind you -- that it has no business telling a private company whom it must and must not hire or fire, no matter who owns it. Best quote:

"Given the dysfunction which was caused by the Petitioner's prior employment, her inappropriate relationship with a subordinate employee and the clear acrimonious relationship between her and Mr. Court (sic), if she were reinstated by order of this Court it would no doubt lead to this Court being called upon to oversee the day to day management of the Dodgers."

I love how Frank McCourt's lawyer misspells his name to make it look like it is a totally different party filing this thing. I also love how "The Dodgers" cite Jamie's "inappropriate relationship." If this really was the team advocating its own interests separate and apart from Frank's, don't you think they'd want to be more circumspect about citing the reasons for the employee's dismissal? What company cites this sort of thing in a public filing in a case in which they're not a party?

Of course the answer is that this isn't really the Dodgers acting in their own interests as a corporation or partnership or whatever type of entity it is. This is Frank trying to get his infidelity allegations out there as soon as he possibly can (his big brief contra Jamie's will likely take a few days to put together). That "the Dodgers" filing is signed by Frank McCourt's divorce lawyer pretty much says it all. Are there any minority owners involved in that team at all who can put an end to this silliness and get the team its own representation, or are Frank and Jamie the only people around? It's behavior like this -- and Jamie McCourt's using the team as her personal bank account as she admitted in her own filing -- that gets corporate veils pierced.

And before you say anything: yes, I realize I'm linking TMZ again. I blame Major League Baseball and FOX. If there weren't so many damn days off in October I'd have some actual baseball to write about.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 1:47pm

My Morning in Exile

Let's put the comments section to good use this afternoon: use this thread to post your World Series prediction. No need for heavy analysis. I want (a) your winner; and (b) a short statement with your reasons why. I won't hold you to Twitter length, but I'm definitely looking for Twitter spirit: short, pithy, decisive and, for bonus points, funny. I'll start: Yankees in six. Why? Would you like me to tell you the little story of right-hand/left-hand? The story of good and evil? H-A-T-E! It is with this left hand that the Yankees will strike the blow that will lay the city of brotherly love low.

Now you go (no, you don't have to be as obtuse as me). While you're thinking:

I ain't pass the bar but i know a little bit; enough that Jay-Z can't just book a show in Ohio and split. We'll see how smart you are when the lawsuit comes. I got 99 problems but your lame show with Alicia Keys ain't one.

Like Len said in the comments, when it comes to the McCourt divorce saga, you all get the Reader’s Digest version, NBC gets the Highlights for Children version. In this instance, this is less a maturity thing than an attention span thing. Oh, and the predictions comment thread was Len's idea too, so mad props to Len today.

Gary Matthews, Jr. doesn't want to be in Anaheim anymore. I love it when everyone can agree on things.

The inevitable mayoral wager story. If Columbus had a team playing for a championship, our mayor would be forced to wager our city's passive but polite mediocrity, because we don't have much else. OK, maybe some White Castles and kinda bad pizza.

Some more on the New York-Philly trash talk.

If the Rockies had won the NL and the NL had won the All-Star Game, we would be in a world of sh*t right now.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 12:01pm

The McCourt Divorce: Reader’s Digest version

Recently-fired Dodger CEO Jamie McCourt filed for divorce from Dodger owner Frank McCourt yesterday. Or I should say alleged Dodger co-owner Jamie McCourt filed for divorce from alleged Dodger co-owner Frank McCourt, because ownership of the Dodgers is clearly the big deal here. If you're into this sort of thing you can read the papers here. If not, here are some of the highlights:

The McCourts are worth $1.2 billion, with $800 million of that worth being the value of the Dodgers. I'd expect that team valuation figure to vary wildly in the future depending on whether Jamie buys Frank out (she'll then claim it's $500 million); Frank buys Jamie out (she'll claim it's worth $1 billion) or they sell the team and split the money (They'd jointly ask $1.6 billion). Crazy? Heck, that same dynamic is going on with my divorcing neighbors across the street who think they're going to sell that house for what they're asking. Please, you have laminate counter tops, guys, and you didn't even spring for the bonus room. Why would anyone pay that much?

Jamie McCourt demands custody of Tommy Lasorda. Just kidding. She wants Casey Blake. He's ruggedly handsome, you know.

Unlike your old man, who had the good sense to throw your ass out on the street when you turned 18 so you could learn to make something of of yourself, the McCourts support their four adult children with generous financial support. In unrelated news, I think I'm gonna go marry a McCourt. I don't care which one. Well, not Jamie. Her lawyers are MEAN.

Lots of case cites and legal arguments. This is of limited interest to you non-lawyers. The lawyers, however, will be interested to know that they underline cases in California rather than italicize them. Personally, I do neither: I write cases in wing ding font. Have I mentioned that I lose a lot?

Jamie and Frank had an agreement that they wouldn't announce anything or do anything regarding their marriage until after the Dodgers were eliminated from the postseason. Frank violated that agreement, Jamie says, by firing her on October 21st, before the Dodgers were eliminated by the Phillies that night. I'm inclined to go easy on Frank for this, however. Sure, the game wasn't over yet, but Torre was starting Vicente Padilla, so it was reasonable to assume that things would end soon enough.

Frank's actions, Jamie alleges, were all designed to freeze her out of the Dodgers, which apparently forms the basis of almost all of their marital cash flow. At the same time, he closed or froze bank accounts which pay her bills and stuff. Classy move, Frank!

Some marital history. They met as teenagers. One of them majored in French. One of them went to law school. They moved to a city they didn't much care for. They had no money. The lawyer realized that the practice of law wasn't the right career choice. All of this describes my wife and I as well. Age us 20 years and give a billion bucks and this could totally be us.

The McCourts made their money in parking lots. I'm assuming their millions came from TOTALLY BOGUS KEY CARD DEPOSIT FEES THAT THEY NEVER RETURN EVEN WHEN YOU GIVE THE KEY CARD BACK. Not that I have any experience in that with Cap City parking in Columbus, Ohio, do I Walid? Jerk.

"Since I was a young girl, I dreamed of owning a Major League baseball team." David Glass says the same thing all the time. Verbatim.

When the McCourts bought the Dodgers, Frank made a public statement that said "Family ownership has returned to the Dodgers!" I'm just a dumb trial lawyer who is ignorant of the ways of divorce courts, but I have this feeling that video of that is going to be played to a jury at some point, perhaps several dozen times over the course of a two week trial.

Jamie led a push to have the environs of Dodger Stadium given its own zip code and the name "Dodgertown, California." That's so lame I'd expect to see that as an accusation in Frank's filings, not a supporting point in Jamie's.

Many paragraphs in which Jamie describes Frank as freezing her out of management of the team and trying to "rewrite history" as to whether the team was jointly owned or owned just by Frank. This is the real meat of this filing and the stuff that will make up the bulk of the nastiness going forward. It's a fool's game to make up your mind after reading one side's pleading, but I'm a fool, so I'll do it anyway: a lot of her allegations sound (a) plausible; and (b) not very good for Frank. Petty crap, if true, none of which will serve his alleged intended end of establishing himself as sole owner of the team.

Jamie wants her job back as Dodger CEO. But even if she can't get that, she wants all the "perquisites, emoluments and benefits" that come with the job and with co-ownership of the Dodgers. That's perks and fringe benefits to peasants like you and me. The list of perks is long and includes all of the sorts of things you might expect the owners of a billion dollar company to have: Private jet travel, five star hotels wherever she goes, use of the "Dodger credit card" and the like. The only one that has me scratching my head is "private security when traveling in dangerous locations." By that I can only assume she means road trips to Queens when the team plays the Mets.

Jamie made $2 million a year when she worked for the Dodgers. You can look at this one of two ways: as an awful damn lot of money to pay a person for coming up with stupid stuff like "Dodgertown, California" or as a total steal considering she made 1/6 the money Jason Schmidt did and actually, you know, did stuff.

The McCourts own a lot of real estate. Which I understand seeing how rich they are and everything. What I don't get is the redundancy: two Malibu beach house, two Massachusetts houses, a place in Vail and a place in Yellowstone. Where's Bill Simmons' VP of Common Sense here? Why not sell Malibu #2, Massachusetts #2 and one of the western outdoorsy places and supplement with places in New York, Hawaii and Portofino? Man, rich people should just hire me. I could make their lives a whole lot better.

Description of lifestyle: more on the private air travel (private jets at $12K an hour) fine hotels (always over $1000 a night) and nice dinners out ($400+ a pop). Good for them. What kills me though is that the next time there's a labor impasse, Joe Fan is going to side with the owners and complain that the players are the greedy ones who make too much money to play a kid's game.

She wants $320,967 in monthly spousal support if she gets her job back with the Dodgers. If she does not get her job back with the Dodgers, she wants $487,634 a month. That seems like a lot, but when you consider that the guy was paying Andruw Jones more than three times that recently, it kind of puts things in perspective.

It goes on and on and on like that, complete with exhibits and stuff which bloat it to 137 pages. At the risk of going on that long myself, I'll stop now. But before I do, let me say one thing: don't ever, ever, ever get married, no matter what you do.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 12:01am

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

“It’s Slumdog, but with baseball, baby!!”

At least I'm assuming that was the pitch:

The rights to the improbable story of two kids from Indian villages, who won a pitching contest without even knowing the rules of baseball and were eventually drafted, have been acquired by Sony. Rinku Singh won the Million Dollar Arm contest and was marketed to teams along with the runner-up Dinesh Patel. Both signed with the Pittsburgh Pirates. Although the plot doesn't necessarily have the perfect ending yet -- the two pitched 20 innings combined of rookie-A baseball this season -- the fact that they are even on the same playing field with people who have been playing baseball for their entire lives . . .

. . . Although Indian actors will play the two, Rinku joked that he wanted the Rock to play him and Dinesh said he'd like to be portrayed by Jason Bourne, also known as Matt Damon. In addition to the movie, Bernstein said he is also in negotiations for a book and a television documentary as well that will come out around the same time as the movie.

Nice casting suggestions.

Of course, given that they signed with the Pirates, the movie will be a tragedy.

(thanks to Pete Toms for the heads up)

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 5:33pm

Quote of the Day

"I don't have hate for Philly exactly -- they are like our redheaded stepchild. It's like a nothing city. It's just insignificant in comparison to New York."

-- Michael Stewart, random Yankees fan quoted in an article that brings the Phillies' hate like nothin' you're going to see today. I'm guessing that the Philly retort will come tomorrow, either in the form of a companion article in the Inquirer or via a mob hit or something.

A lot of us wanted to see at least one of the L.A. teams in this thing because of the contrast in styles and the weather and all of that. But really, it had to be New York-Philly to get this kind of trash talk going, and I for one am thrilled with it.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 1:12pm

Why I’m not a divorce lawyer

I'm guessing Joe Torre never would have guessed in a million years that he'd ever find a more messed up ownership situation than the one he had in New York.

(link via FanHouse)

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 1:01pm

My Morning in Exile

Don't read anything I wrote this morning. Spend any free Internet time you have today here. You won't be sorry. But when you get done with that:

In 1950 a new house cost $8,450.00, the average income per year was $3,210.00, and the Phillies lost the World Series. Between the recession and the Yankees' superior rotation, all three of these things are likely to come to pass once again over the next couple of weeks.

Chase Utley wasn't hurt, but thank God he had the time off to heal. Confused? You won't be after this week's episode of "Soap!"

Adrian Gonzalez is probably on his way out of San Diego.

You know, Kyle Farnsworth is tall, was once young and could once throw around 100 m.p.h. too, and I didn't see anyone offering hm $40 million.

There are a lot of ignorant and disturbed people in Chicago. In unrelated news, some idiot racists send hate mail to black Cubs' players.

Selig is "delighted" that McGwire is back in the game. I wish I had a transcript of his reaction to the Congressional testimony back in 2005.

The best book over at that blog has to be Why our Children Drink. Points will be awarded to the best answers to that question in the comments.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 12:04pm

“Win one for George”

Win one for George? He's got six already. Can't Hal have this one? Or maybe they can mail it to Bobby Murcer's family or to Mattingly? They always deserved one, didn't they?

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 8:41am

And Nothing Happened

I get having last night off, but is there a reason in the world why Game 1 can't be played tonight? I mean a reason that doesn't involve silly network decisions?

In the meantime: Robin Roberts reflects on the Whiz Kids and the Phillies of today. In his honor, and in honor of the 1950 series, Charlie Manuel should sit Cliff Lee for Game 1.

Also, lar has all kinds of fun with the 1950 series. Hey, if Jim Konstanty smokes Camels, why wouldn't I smoke Camels too?

Note: the last game of the 1950 World Series was played on October 7th. People keep complaining about the postseason lasting so long, but at least we still have some baseball ahead of us in late October. What did those mopes in 1950 have to look forward to? The Chinese invasion of North Korea? The Rosenberg trial?

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 6:59am

Monday, October 26, 2009

Yankees > Giants

Baseball is my sport, but NBC pays me, so I'm torn:

In a television matchup of New York sports teams, baseball’s Yankees were more popular than football’s Giants.

The Yankees earned an 11.4 rating for their Game 6 victory last night over the Los Angeles Angels in the American League Championship Series, shown on News Corp.’s Fox. The rating is based on the U.S.’s top-56 metered markets. The Yankees advanced to the World Series for the first time since 2003.

The Giants, who lost to the Arizona Cardinals 24-17 last night at Giants Stadium, drew 10.4 million viewers on NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” broadcast, NBC Sports spokesman Adam Freifeld said in an e-mail.

But with all due respect to my NBC overlords, anyone watching the Giants and the Cardinals over the Yankees-Angels who wasn't being paid to do so needs their head examined.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 2:55pm

Silver Chalice Ventures

I've written in the past about Fenway Sports Group and its not-subject-to-revenue-sharing money. The Red Sox are not the only team getting in on the act:

The Chicago White Sox are stepping up to the plate in the digital media arena.

Silver Chalice Ventures, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Major League Baseball team, is working with customers to boost business online and via mobile platforms by helping clients offer such services as the ability check scores on cell phones.

The revenue raised by Silver Chalice will not be subject to baseball's revenue-sharing rules, meaning everything generated by Silver Chalice belongs 100 percent to the team, said Brooks Boyer, White Sox chief marketing officer and CEO of the new venture.

If David Glass were serious about making the Royals a winner he'd rebrand the pharmacies and sporting goods sections of every Wal-Mart store "Royal-Mart" and give Dayton Moore a billion dollars to play with every year.

Well, not the Dayton Moore part.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 2:21pm

The World Series and the pols

NPR's Ken Rudin has a story on politicians riding on the coattails of baseball teams. After rolling his eyes at Bloomberg being an attention whore in the Yankees' locker room last night, Rudin asks an intriguing question: what do the people running for Governor of New Jersey do about the World Series? What plays in Camden doesn't necessarily play in Hoboken! And Game 5 is scheduled for the night before the election . . .

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 2:07pm

My Morning in Exile

I got 99 problems but delaying the first pitch ain't one:

When the Mets' gravity fails, negativity will pull them through (hat tip to Jay for putting "Tom Thumb's Blues" in my head)

According to Heyman, Joe Girardi is one of "October's Disasters." I agree that good outcomes don't validate bad decisions, but c'mon.

The Curse of Larry Dierker strikes again.

As alluded to earlier, my two takes on McGwire becoming the Cardinals' hitting coach: Serious take and not-so-serious take. Maybe I'll go for some emotional ambiguity later.

Did A-Rod get jobbed out of the ALCS MVP?

Finally, though I didn't weigh in on it in a formal post, I am struck by the notion that three nights of bad judgment as a playa did for Steve Phillips what five years of bad judgment as an analyst couldn't do: get him fired. There's probably a lesson in there somewhere, but I'm too busy planning a rendezvous with my portly mistress to think too hard about it . . .

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 11:58am

Coach Mark McGwire, 2010

I handled the McGwire story seriously here, so now let's have some fun with it:

[scene: Cardinals-Cubs game, summer 2010. Yadier Molina just struck out on four pitches and goes to talk to the hitting coach]

Molina: Hey Mac, Zambrano got me with the changeup last time. So I was looking changeup, and he busted me with the fastball. Did it look like I was cheating changeup?

McGwire: I'm not here to talk about the past. I'm here to be positive about this subject. You took a good hack at that last one.

Molina: Um, sure, but I need some help with my approach here. I feel lost up there today. Should I move back in the box a bit?

McGwire: Asking me or anyone else to answer questions about where to stand in the box will not solve the problem. If I answer 'No,' he will just come with the changeup again and you'll be further out in front. If I answer 'Yes,' you risk public scorn and endless second guessing when you wait too long to react to the pitch.

Molina: Jesus, coach, you got anything for me?

McGwire: My lawyers have advised me that I cannot answer these questions without jeopardizing my friends, my family, and myself. I will say, however, that it remains a fact in this country that a man, any man, should look at more film before facing a crafty veteran like Carlos Zambrano.

Molina: Uh, thanks, coach.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 11:25am

And That Happened: ALCS

Yankees 5, Angels 2: "At times we played good baseball. At times we shot ourselves in the foot," Mike Scioscia said after the game. Someone's gonna have to point out the good for me, because I missed most of it. Eight errors in the series. Saunders walked five guys last night. Scioscia made baffling move after baffling move. Guerrero getting doubled off first base on that shallow fly ball. Just a lot of ugly baseball from a team that's alleged to be fundamentally sound.

But like the Phillies over the Dodgers, this is the case of the better team winning, not some default job. It was like old times seeing Pettitte and Rivera taking care of business. It was like an alternate universe seeing A-Rod repeatedly come up strong in the postseason (I love me some CC, but I really think Rodriguez deserved the MVP). Based on how my postseason predictions have gone it'll make Philly fans happy to hear that I think the Yankees are gonna take this thing, but this time I don't think even my prognostication will prove poor. Here's hoping the weather holds up.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 5:47am

Friday, October 23, 2009

Giveaways

SBJ breaks down the impact of various ballpark giveaways and promotions on attendance. There's a chart at the link that I'm not going to reproduce here. Suffice it to say, however, that Webkinz night is quite the draw. College Night and Little League Day, however, may as well be replaced by an H1N1 promotion.

(Thanks to Pete Toms for the link)

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 2:08pm

My Morning In Exile

Things I wrote while wondering whether I am the only attorney in Columbus, Ohio who is listening to "Protect Ya Neck" on his iPod right now. Maybe this guy is . . .

Jamie McCourt should sue Frank. Not for ownership of the team, but for sexual harassment. "He fired me as soon as we stopped sleeping together, your honor . . ." Couldn't make this business any crazier.

Bobby Valentine pulls off the greatest job interview since Spud's went on about getting his foot in the door and "showin' initiative and that like" in "Trainspotting."

MLB wants better umps in the World Series. MLB assigns Joe West to the World Series. These things do not go together.

Yesterday Matt Holliday pretended that he wanted to go to the Yankees in order to drive his price up. Today the Yankees pretend they're not interested in Holliday to drive his price down. Jesus, will you two kiss each other already?

Should the Royals trade Joakim Soria?

Should the Blue Jays have traded for David Wright?

That's right: I'm all OVER 16 year-old hip-hop. Next year I may listen to some new stuff by some guy called the Notorious R.B.I or whatever his name is . . .

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 12:12pm

And That Happened: ALCS

Angels 7, Yankees 6: Behold the power of the Rally Monkey. Or behold the the suckiness that is A.J. Burnett when he doesn't have his best stuff. Or behold the presence of mad chance that allowed the Angels to win despite the best efforts of Mike Scioscia. Whatever the case, each team did its best to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, with the Yankees just barely edging the Angels in that department.

Game 6 in New York. Giant rain is in the forecast. Thankfully we have approximately 19 days until Game 1 of the World Series, so we should be OK. Probably.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 5:35am

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Deadspin’s assault on ESPN

Like a lot of you, I've been watching the Steve Phillips business from afar. Between the almost complete lack of any real baseball angle whatsoever, and the fact that, unlike a lot of scandalous stories, this one has an innocent wife and children being dragged through it all, I really don't see the percentage in writing about it. I'll gawk like the rest of you, but it doesn't exactly scream out for coverage.

Of greater interest to me is one of the things that has spun out of the Phillips story, and that's Deadspin's crazy-even-for-Deadspin assault on ESPN yesterday. If you missed it, Deadspin editor A.J. Daulerio, apparently pissed that he missed out on the Steve Phillips scoop due to ESPN stonewalling him when he sought comment on the affair last month, decided to let loose with multiple rumors he's been sitting on regarding the sexploits of ESPN employees. He reported on a sexual harassment complaint against radio guy Eric Kuselias, as well as his divorce. He went after Katie Lacey, ESPN's Executive Vice President for marketing, accusing her of sleeping her way to the top. In his last post he went on about the overall culture of ESPN, about how everyone there allegedly has sex with everyone else and how, somehow, the town of Bristol, Connecticut is to blame. These descriptions do not do it justice. He really pulled no punches.

I read these with my mouth agape, not because of the allegations contained in them, but because of Daulerio's decision to actually write about them, and Nick Denton's presumed approval of them to begin with. Yes, the Gawker empire is well known for trafficking in scandal, but this seems above and beyond their usual brand of muck. As AOL's Clay Travis -- lawyer, and, it just so happens, former Deadspin assistant editor -- notes, this may not amount to a meritorious defamation suit by ESPN, but it's certainly closer to the line than Deadspin normally treads. I actually think ESPN would ultimately lose any lawsuit here simply because defamation is so hard to win, but I could see Disney and ESPN making the decision that, after all of the hell Deadspin has caused them, this is a decent enough place to draw the line, file the suit, and cause Nick Denton to have to pay a bunch of money in legal fees. Whether any suit is brought would likely hinge on the cooperation of either Kuselias or Lacey, whose lives would become open books in such a suit, but if one of them were pissed off enough and/or close enough to retirement to say sure, go ahead, it would be game-on.

Maybe there are long odds against that happening, but are they so long that it was worth Daulerio taking such a risk? Moreover, is this really where the original promise of Deadspin and the sports blogosphere in general was meant to lead us? I'm not Buzz Bissinger when it comes to these matters, but as I sit here today and reflect on all of this, I am far from inspired.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 3:55pm

The Negro League All-Stars for Strat-o-Matic

Courtesy of our friend Scott Simkus, the Negro League All-Star set is now available for Strat-o-Matic:

I’ve spent the past several years working as a consultant to the Strat-O-Matic game company, focusing on their Negro League All-Star set. The opportunity is really the product of happenstance, lucky timing on my part.

The Negro League set couldn’t have been produced 30 years ago, as our knowledge of blackball then was mired in what fellow baseball researcher Gary Ashwill has called the “hazy netherworld of unverifiable myth, tall tales, gut feelings and subjective judgments.” Truth is the set couldn’t have been produced ten years ago, let alone thirty. The data, or more accurately, the access to raw data in the form of box scores, was still outside our grasp. The timing wasn’t right.

But it is now, and Scott talks about what went into it and why it was possible to do it today. Neat stuff regardless, but especially so if you're a strat guy. Or girl.

The set can be found here. New Strat website too.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 1:39pm

My Morning in exile

Stuff I wrote while thinking of the best way to taunt the lead singer of a 1980s British synth-pop band (explained below) . . .

Matt Holliday's "friend" says Holliday wants to be a New York Yankee. The "friend" lives in Canada. You wouldn't know him.

Should the Sox trade Papelbon and install Bard as closer? Hell, ain't my team. They can sign Willie Hernandez for all I care.

Is there any man more in demand so far this offseason than Manny Acta?

Would you believe Milton Bradley?

The best thing in the world would be to mic-up Ozzie Guillen for the World Series, give him a bunch of Budweiser, and just let him go on uninterrupted for three or four hours. That won't happen, but this isn't the worst consolation prize.

How would you like to be managed by your older brother? Since my brother is a manager at an In-N-Out Burger it would be kind of weird for me, but I suppose it would awkward on a major league ballclub too.

I've mentioned this before I think, but my In-N-Out managing brother's longtime girlfriend was a childhood friend, and is still best friends with the wife of a guy named Andy McCluskey. McCluskey, some of you may know, is the lead singer for the band OMD of "If you leave" fame. The McCluskeys keep a house in San Diego and my brother is over there all the time, house sits for them them, babysits the kids, etc. When I first became aware of this several years ago I began taunting my brother -- who was sort of dropping the OMD thing like it was some major social chit -- over the moderate-at-best worldwide fame of his new friend and patron. I probably would have left it alone, but he set me off when he used the "hey, they're really big in Europe and Japan" line. Since then, it's been almost constant abuse. Things like "hey Curt, I gotta go; Howard Jones is on the other line, and it's obviously a much more important call." Or "So, like, is house sitting for Human League a promotion or is it considered a lateral move?" Most of the jokes were about him being a one-hit wonder. He told Andy about all of this. His response: "ask your brother what it's like to work a job, because I'll never have to know." Damn McCluskey. He's had me dead to rights on that one for about five years now.

Anyway, I'm newly inspired to mock him -- in a friendly fashion, mind you -- because OMD is apparently going on some tour this winter with another John Hughes movie one-hit-wonder, Simple Minds. Curt is going to travel with them and, hell, I don't know, get them towels or hair gel or white Zinfandel or Patrick Nagel paintings or whatever it is those 80s synth-poppers need to survive. I was thinking about flooding the official OMD website with questions about whether it was true that Hughes' will finally freed them from servitude or whether it's true that Oingo Boingo was going to be headlining or something, but his wife runs the site and she's pretty good people.

There's no point to this except that if I'm slow blogging this afternoon it's because I'm obsessed with trying to come up with new and inventive taunts for OMD. Which pretty much shows you how pathetic I am. Determined, but pathetic.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 12:27pm

And That Happened: NLCS

Phillies 10, Dodgers 4: At some point this winter, Ned Colletti and Joe Torre are going to have an epiphany in which they realize that having to rely on Vicente Padilla to save their butts in an elimination game means that they screwed something up somewhere along the line. Torre may not have deployed his troops in ideal fashion in the NLCS, but ultimately, he was simply outgunned. And betrayed by his bullpen, his supposed strength.

But this was not merely a Dodgers loss. It was a Phillies win. Their lineup has proved every bit as formidable as advertised, with Shane Victorino and Jayson Werth showing that to beat them you need to do more than to throw a lefty or two at Ryan Howard and hope for the best. They're going to be tough to beat.

The Yankees are their likely opponent. We'll see if they seal the deal tonight. If they do, Game 1 of the World Series will likely feature a matchup of two Cleveland Indians' Cy Young Award winners, one of whom is managed by the Indians' former manager. They should get Duane Kuiper to throw out the first pitch.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 5:38am

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Don Fehr gets a severance package

Don Fehr's severance package comes in at about $11 million. He made $1 million a year for the past decade or so, which is way below his worth based on what he does and who he tangles with on a day to day basis. His work has put hundreds of times that amount of money into the pockets of the players he has represented. According to the article, the players had no problem agreeing to pay him his dough.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 2:02pm

My Morning in Exile

I don't have anything snarky to say about Steve Phillips' situation. Some bad judgment on his part has led to an ugly and possibly scary situation, and that's no good for anyone involved, whatever their foibles.

But man, if the dude was going to get kicked off ESPN for a week, you'd at least hope that it would be during a week in which he was scheduled to broadcast a game . . .

Manny hits the showers. Plaschke's blood pressure to soon hit 190 over 100.

The post in which I slipped in references to Mariano throwing a spitball and being behind the balloon boy hoax. No one seems to have noticed yet.

Any umpire who looks at a play with the right call in his heart has already committed adultery. Wait -- I may be mixing that quote up. And no, I don't expect many people under 40 -- hell, maybe under 50 -- to get that one.

Is it ironic or merely funny that the team of Chief Wahoo is thinking serious thoughts about ethnicity and stuff as they choose their new manager? Is this like a black fly in their chardonnay?

The Wilpons didn't lose $700 to Bernie Madoff. Which means that Larry King was wrong about something. Next thing you know we'll find out that, no, Kate Hepburn was NOT the best actress for his money, and that there was more of a class act than David Niven.

The Cubs hire Rudy Jaramillo and give him a bunch of money. It's OK though, because he's going to have two jobs: (1) hitting coach; and (2) Bradley-Whisperer.

Thanks for all of the kind words and constructive criticism in last night's thread, everyone. I try to do whatever I can to get better at this stuff, and you're all a big help in me doing so.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 1:37pm

And That Happened: ALCS

Yankees 10, Angels 1: I-95 Series here we come. As the geniuses out there predicted, CC was studly on short rest. As has been the case all postseason, A-Rod was huge (3-for-4, two-run homer, three runs scored).

Man, that umpiring. Calling Swisher out on the tagup play was an obvious makeup call. Of course, like the unwritten rules, umpires say there are no such things as makeup calls, so we should probably ignore it, right? I guess we can just be thankful that it didn't have an impact on the ultimate outcome of the game.

Pointless day off today. Burtnett vs. Lackey tomorrow. Philly vs. New York, hell, sometime around Thanksgiving, I think.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 5:35am

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Death threats and precedents

The Mariano Rivera stuff obviously struck a nerve today. For what it's worth, I stand by my posts on it, both here and at NBC. There was a video that showed something interesting. I raised some questions about it and doubted whether simply saying "Mariano would never do such a thing" was enough to put the kibosh on the inquiry. I qualified everything I said with statements about how the video was not conclusive and how better angles would be needed before something conclusive could be said. If there was an actual accusation in my comments somewhere, someone will have to point it out to me. MLB at least felt it necessary to take a quick look. When they did and weighed in later, I posted an update quite quickly. All in a day's bloggy work.

But clearly not everyone agrees. Question: was it illegitimate to post links to the video and ask the questions I asked in the first place? I don't think so, but I'm curious for your thoughts. Not about Mariano -- that's over, and I'm quite content to accept MLB's view on it, especially in light of the still photos that appeared later in the day. I want to know whether it was wrong to even raise the issue in the first place, and if so, why so. The one reason people cited over and over today -- that it was Mariano Rivera we're talking about here, and he's not worthy of accusation -- doesn't convince me. If we had a picture of Mother Teresa raising a baseball bat over the head of a cowering man, would we not ask what was happening? The problem, it seems, only comes if you (a) immediately jump to a conclusion that she's beating the guy without acknowledging that more could be going on that first meets the eye; or (b) disregard actual, later evidence which debunks the first impression created by the picture.

Two things lead me to ask these questions. First is the fact that I got a freakin' death threat over all of this. It's been deleted, but a commenter at NBC, after multiple posts in which he wished for me to die of horrible diseases, finally came out and said that he hoped someone killed me. Hey-o! I'm used to the Yankee nonsense I willingly stir up over there turning ugly, but this was beyond even my comfort level. There's no need to tell me that was uncalled for -- believe me, I know it -- but was this merely a moron at work, or was the post (which was nearly identical to the post below here) beyond my usual taunting? I honestly want your opinion.

The second, and more substantial reason I ask is because I'm reminded of the Kenny Rogers affair from three years ago. You'll recall that cameras captured some schmutz on Rogers' hand. It disappeared an inning or two later. It was quickly looked into and then dismissed by MLB. In all of that, it was much like today's business. The difference: Mariano Rivera has a better reputation than Kenny Rogers, and no one thought to say that Kenny Rogers was above such questions.

Was it legitimate to raise questions about Rogers and not Mariano? Was it legitimate or illegitimate for both? What are the rules here? Like I said, I think my posts were within the realm of the acceptable but obviously others disagree. Even those who don't want me dead.

If you're all tired of this, move along. There's baseball happening. If not, though, I think it might be a worthy conversation to have in the comments.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 4:36pm

MLB: No evidence Rivera was throwing a spitter

I suppose this closes the case:

The Commissioners Office reviewed available video and still photography from Mariano Rivera spitting toward a baseball in ALCS Game 3 and “found no evidence that Rivera spit on the ball,” a spokesman for the commissioner told the Post.

The initial reaction by the league had been that the video plus still pictures they have of the incident were inconclusive if Rivera actually spit on or near the ball. But after further review of what they had, the Commissioners Office determined that Rivera was not spitting directly on the ball.

Kudos for MLB to looking into it. As I said in the earlier post, there was certainly nothing conclusive about the video -- another angle clearly showing spit smacking the ball would be the minimum necessary for this to be taken to the next level -- but it was interesting enough that it warranted scrutiny.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 2:40pm

Did Mariano Rivera throw a spitball?!

Check out the video here. I'll hear all evidence to the contrary, but that looks to me like he (a) looks up to see if anyone is watching; and (b) spits right on the damn ball.

Is that the secret to the unhittable cutter?

UPDATE: The Yankees' bad day in multimedia continues . . .

UPDATE #2: A Q&A on Mariano:

Q: Is Mariano definitely spitting on the ball?

A: Hard to say. Looks like it to me, but the cutaway is quick and the angle could be deceiving. I'm just going with my first impression of what the video and photo show. I'd kill for another angle of this.

Q: Do you actually throw a spitball by, you know, spitting on the ball?

A: It's not the most traditional way -- according to everything I've read merely wetting the fingers is more common -- but it's certainly been done. Really, anything that either (a) adds a viscous fluid to the ball to alter its flight; or (b) lubes it up to decrease friction upon release, thereby increasing the spin and thus the ultimate drop is sufficient.

Q: If it is a spitball, why would Rivera be so obvious about it? He's a smart guy. He'd try to hide it better, wouldn't he?

A: Maybe so. But isn't it just as valid to say that Rivera, one of the most talented pitchers ever, never had to use a spitball before, and thus if he is now, he's less likely to be practiced at it than a guy who had to cheat just to keep his job?

I have no idea what he's doing here -- and I simply don't want to believe that Rivera was throwing a spitter, because I've always admired and respected the guy -- but it doesn't seem satisfying to simply say "Mariano would never do this, so he didn't do it." The video is very, very interesting. It may be completely debunked by another angle -- and if anyone has one, please send it ASAP and I'll update. But for now, it's all we have.

I know I have a reputation for baiting Yankees fans, but I am sincere in asking whether or not Rivera was doing this. I don't know, and I'm open to alternate interpretations and evidence.

(thanks to Jason Epstein for the heads up)

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 8:45am

And That Happened: LCS Edition

Angels 5, Yankees 4: Girardi, on the decision to replace Dave Robertson with Alfredo Aceves:

Joe Girardi: The bullpen goes up to eight. Look, right across the board, eight, eight, eight and...

Beat Reporter: Oh, I see. And most managers only use the number of relievers they actually need?

Joe Girardi: Exactly.

Beat Reporter: Does that mean it's better? Is the bullpen any better if you use eight pitchers instead of seven?

Joe Girardi: Well, it's one better, isn't it? It's not seven. You see, most blokes, you know, will be pitching seven. You're on seven here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on seven in your bullpen. Where can you go from there? Where?

Beat Reporter: I don't know.

Joe Girardi: Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?

Beat Reporter: Put in your eighth pitcher.

Joe Girardi: Eight. Exactly. One better.

Beat Reporter: Why don't you just use your best reliever seventh, and make seven be the top number and finish the game with him?

Joe Girardi: [pause] This bullpen goes to eight.

Phillies 5, Dodgers 4: Um, L.A.? You're supposed to have the good bullpen. Bruntlett scored the tying run, but let us all remember that it was Matt Stairs who drew the walk that called for a pinch runner to begin with. Matt Stairs is the best. 3-1 Phillies. I hate to cut this short, but I have a long day of "See! I told U! No 1 believed in us! We're the champs, dood! Your stupid 4 picking the Dooshers to win anything. Get a new job" comments over a the Blue Network. And they'll still come when I write a piece talking about just how sharp the Phillies are right now, and how well-managed and confident they are and everything.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 12:02am

Monday, October 19, 2009

NBC Comment of the Day

If St. Louis baseball fans are so great and "die-hard" why aren't the Browns still in St. Louis?

-- Commenter "Bamboozled" in "Teh Yankees are the greatest, dood!" post.

I often use this feature to mock, but I can't decide if this one is mock-worthy or brilliant. I'm leaning brilliant. The actual mouth breathers over there probably think that the Browns moved to Phoenix in the late 80s.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 7:21pm

Nats tickets? Really?

From the military police blotter:

The Marine Corps said Monday a sergeant charged with faking war injuries to obtain freebies intended for wounded warriors will plead guilty . . . The 34-year-old Marine from Springhill, La., faces eight counts carrying prison terms of up to 31 years. He is accused of bluffing his way into 33 events last year, including six rock concerts, two Washington Nationals baseball games and a Washington Redskins football game.

I understand the rock concerts and Redskins games. Those are expensive! But why anyone would risk their freedom and honor over Nats tickets is beyond me. They have roughly the same value of a spent Metro card, don't they?

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 3:13pm

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Tuesday, May 29, 2012

And That Happened

Friday, November 27, 2009

See you on the other side

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Thursday, November 26, 2009

Giving Thanks

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

The final Geoff Baker Rigidity Award of the ShysterBall Era

My Morning in Exile

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

My very long Morning in Exile

Monday, November 23, 2009

Mauer Power

My Morning in Exile

Friday, November 20, 2009

Great Moments in Championship Celebrations

My Morning in Exile

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Your Thursday afternoon tizzy

Lincecum takes the Cy Young

My Morning in Exile

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

My Morning in Exile

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Great Moments in Transparency: Christina Kahrl’s Rookie of the Year vote

It’s Greinke

My Morning in Exile

Monday, November 16, 2009

New Twins uniforms revealed

Rookies of the Year: Bailey and Coghlan

“The Official Major League Baseball World Series Film Collection”

Sign this petition

My Morning in Exile

Friday, November 13, 2009

Mr. GQ

“The New York Mets will be facilitating activities that directly violate international law”

My Morning in Exile

Thursday, November 12, 2009

My Morning in Exile

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Two thoughts on Marvin Miller

My Morning in Exile

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

My Morning in Exile

Don’t bring Griffey back Seattle

Monday, November 09, 2009

Jeff Pearlman continues to loathe his job

Tom Brookens Sighting

Chalk pulls a Favre

My Morning in Exile

Friday, November 06, 2009

Great Moments in Plagiarization

The Nats lay people off

McCourt Update

My Morning in Exile

Deep Thoughts: Tim Lincecum Edition

Thursday, November 05, 2009

Bit dramatic, ain’t it?

Judge to Jamie McCourt: No you can not have your job back

My Morning in Exile

The Yankees and the DUI checkpoint

And That Happened: World Series

Wednesday, November 04, 2009

Viva Democracy

My Morning in Exile

Great Moments in Being Vicente Padilla

Tuesday, November 03, 2009

Programming Note

The McCourt divorce: messier than you could possibly imagine

My Morning in Exile

From the WTF department

And That Happened: World Series