Baseball. Blogging. Whenever.

Sunday, March 01, 2009

On the Road


Remember last year when the Astros and their fans complained for a week about having to play a bunch of road games due to Hurricane Ike? Well, I didn't have any sympathy for them then, and I definitely don't have any sympathy for them now, because compared to the University of Maine at Presque Isle, they don't know from the road:

This February day’s doubleheader against Ferrum would be the first of 37 successive away games scheduled for the University of Maine at Presque Isle team this year.

Because winter can last until May in northern Maine, Presque Isle routinely plays its entire season on the road. With their campus 400 miles north of Boston, the Owls have not played a home baseball game since 2005, when there were two.

“You can either complain that the baseball field is buried under six feet of snow, or you drive to where you can play baseball,” said Tyler Delaney, a junior infielder. “We don’t complain” . . . “We do it for the love of the game,” the senior Brandon Elie said. “We do it because we’ve been playing since we were in T-ball, and we don’t want to stop.”

Charette added: “No one should feel sorry for us. This is fun. I feel sorry for all the people who don’t get to play college baseball.”

Definitely a perspective-inducing read this fine Sunday morning.

(Thanks to JJ McCoy via Facebook, where all the cool kids are getting their news)



Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 8:03am

Monday, March 02, 2009

Today at THT


Things to read while wondering whether Aragorn ever regretted releasing the Army of the Dead before that final attack on Mordor:

  • John Beamer straightens out all of you knuckleheads who routinely mess up your correlation and your R squared. Me? I never touch the stuff.


  • Chris Jaffe reviews a book by Robert Fitts on Wally Yonamine, the first American-born star in Japanese baseball. Jaffe first heard about this book during a presentation at SABR last year. I was at SABR last year but didn't see it. I guess I was too busy being seduced by Cleveland's many charms at the time.


  • Evan Brunell's Lost in Transactions runs down last week's doings. Of note: Kansas City released Neal Musser. I find this interesting because I once played a character named Owen Musser in a high school play. In my last scene I had to wear a KKK robe. Except no one could really make one look right, so I ended up looking like Casper the Friendly Ghost. A redneck, racist, Casper the Friendly Ghost.


  • Over at Fantasy Focus, Victor Wang looks at which players will be overrated in fantasy this year. I always try to avoid these kinds of guys, which is why I go straight for the scrubs.


  • Finally, Derek Carty looks at pitchers who experienced more than their share of bad luck last year. Brian Bannister is on this list. I have absolutely nothing against Bannister, but part of me really hopes that he doesn't bounce back this year because I'd much rather have Posnanski devote his considerable skills to writing about anything other than Brian Bannister every five days.


    • Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 5:53am

    Posada’s shoulder


    Summer 2007: Posada kicks butt

    Fall 2007: Posada signs gigantic contract

    2008-onward: Posada breaks down:

    Yankees catcher Jorge Posada said the new soreness in his surgically repaired right shoulder was nothing to worry about.

    But there was enough concern within the Yankees’ medical staff for Manager Joe Girardi to scratch Posada from the lineup for Saturday’s exhibition game against the Minnesota Twins at Steinbrenner Field and rest him until further notice.

    “I guess it’s good that it’s now than later,” Posada said. “Take two or three days, just get the strength back.”

    Girardi described Posada’s shoulder as “a little, little, little sore.”

    “Minuscule weakness,” he added. “He wanted to play. We said: ‘You’re not playing. It’s too early in the process.’ He’s on the watch list. We want to get that little irritation out of there.”

    Rare is the major injury that doesn't start out as "a little soreness" or "a little tightness" in media reports. Likewise rare is the contract that turns out as poorly as Posada's is looking like it is likely to.
    Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 7:00am

    Bowden out


    Everyone figured Jim Bowden wasn't long for this world, and as you probably saw, over the weekend he resigned. Tom Boswell comes to bury Caesar, not to praise him:

    Jim Bowden was never going to be the Nationals' ultimate general manager, the man who, the franchise hoped, would oversee a potential champion. His methods were too suspect, his moods too unpredictable, his reputation too checkered, his enemies in the game too numerous. But he was useful. He worked like a dog. He sold the game. He was colorful and controversial. He took tiny budgets and, sometimes, made something of them. Or else, like last year, all the baling wire snapped. Given few chips, he couldn't blow a big pot. And he landed castoffs and malcontents, occasionally for peanuts.

    If being called a shoddy, moody, hated GM enamored with toolsy players of questionable attitude is the best someone can say of you in your professional obituary, one wonders why this was a resignation rather than a termination.

    Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 7:45am

    News Flash: Curt Schilling craves attention


    Brett Favre -- er, I mean Curt Schilling -- wants to keep playing:

    Curt Schilling likes to break curses. The Chicago Cubs have had one for over a century.

    Could it be the perfect match?

    Schilling said Saturday that he'd like to pitch for the Cubs this season. The 42-year-old missed the 2008 season with a shoulder injury, but the thought of helping Chicago win its first World Series in 101 years might lure him back for one more season.

    "Absolutely I'll come back," he said at Disney World, where he was appearing in ESPN The Weekend activities . . .

    . . . Schilling, who has a career mark of 216-146, said money would not be a major issue. He's looking for a team that has championship potential and has never won a title. "The challenge would be in a place like Tampa Bay or Chicago," he said.

    To translate, the "challenge" Schilling wants is to joint a team that is (a) already loaded with pitching; and (b) is already favored to make the playoffs, glom on to its pitching staff, grab another ring, and then get all kinds of media love for being the guy who "put them over the top."

    How about this, Curt: offer your services and celebrity to the Royals or the Pirates or someone who could maybe -- maybe -- use those things. Not that he'd do it, of course, because neither of those situations would maximize the Schilling-centric coverage he so obviously craves.
    Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 8:30am

    While you were relaxing . . .


    I don't usually post on weekends, but this weekend I did. In case you missed it:

  • Late Friday evening I had two posts on the postponement of the Barry Bonds trial: This one with my prediction of what might happen in light of the prosecutions' appeal, and this one scratching my head at ESPN's Lester Munson's rosy view of the prosecution's chances.


  • On Saturday morning I posted a link to an audio interview I did with The Card Podcast. Even my dad said he didn't want to hear me talk for an hour and a half, so that one is probably for ShysterBall completists only.


  • Finally, yesterday morning I wrote a little on the plight of the baseball team for the University of Maine at Presque Isle, a team that never gets to win in their final at bat.
    • Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 9:00am

    Great Moments in nasal congestion


    If you believe in signs and portents, it's going to be a long year for Braden Looper:

    The Milwaukee right-hander was scratched from his Cactus League debut after feeling tightness in his left oblique muscle near the end of his bullpen warm-up.

    Looper, signed as a free agent just before the start of spring training, said he first felt a twinge in his side after he sneezed earlier in the week but didn't think twice about it . . .

    . . . When told Hall of Fame reliever Goose Gossage once went on the disabled list after a sneezing-related injury, Looper said, "He's always been a hero of mine, actually."

    If you win 20 in the show, you can pull an oblique sneezing and the press'll think you're colorful. Until you win 20 in the show, it means you're kind of a kook.

    (thanks to tHeMARksMiTh for the link. By the way, my blogroll is totally out of date and I need to fix it. Until I do, know that tHeMARksMiTh writes here now, not at the place I have linked below. Sorry Mark, I'll get it fixed this week. See, I sprained my site-editing finger in a coughing fit, so I just haven't been able to get to it).
    Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 9:30am

    Suttles’ Bat*


    Scott Simkus is taken with a story/press release from the Louisville Slugger Museum about the bat used by Negro Leaguer George “Mule” Suttles. Apparently he swung a 37-inch, 50 ounce stick.

    Mercy.

    *I changed the name of this post because some people questioned whether I was going for a joke based on a racial stereotype. Such a thing was certainly not my intention, as I'm completely colorblind when it comes to making juvenile penis jokes. But I understand how such a thing can be misconstrued as links get passed along and readers come at it with less and less familiarity with my writing style. And before the comments begin, please know that it's neither my intention or desire to cater to the most sensitive readers in the world with this edit. It's simply a matter of saving myself some valuable time. I mean, if I'm going to spend any time defending my level of racial senstitivty, it's going to be done in the service of a post that actually has something to do with race, not something trivial like this.
    Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 10:00am

    The Young Brothers


    It's a press release, sure, but it's one that made me wish I had MLB Network:

    On Monday, March 2 at 9:00 p.m. ET, MLB Network will debut the first-ever original film from MLB Productions, We Are Young: A Baseball Family, the story of MLB players and brothers Dmitri and Delmon Young, who overcame personal struggles to persevere in the Major Leagues . . .

    . . . We Are Young: A Baseball Family, the first-ever original film by MLB Productions, chronicles a seven-year period of MLB players and brothers Dmitri and Delmon Young, and their demanding father, Larry, who helped guide them into the Major Leagues. The film documents Dmitri, currently on the Washington Nationals, who makes the All-Star team in 2003, watches with joy as his brother is selected as the number one pick in the Draft that same year, but then begins to battle alcoholism and is released by the Detroit Tigers in 2005. Soon after, Dmitri comes close to death due to an undiagnosed case of diabetes, and then bounces back to make the All-Star team in 2007 and become the National League's 2007 Comeback Player of the Year. We Are Young: A Baseball Family also chronicles the controversy that has surrounded Delmon-the first overall pick in the 2003 Major League Baseball Draft-ever since his 50-game suspension for flipping a bat in at an umpire during a Minor League game. Delmon would learn a valuable lesson, and eventually is called up to the Major Leagues in the fall of 2005, where he would make an immediate impact with Tampa. After finishing second in the American League Rookie of the Year honors the next season, Delmon was traded to the Twins.

    The Youngs and their antics have often served as point-and-laugh references, and I have been just as guilty of that as anyone. Behind every easy caricature lies a human being, however, and if this film truly gets at any of that, it will definitely be worth watching.

    (thanks to Pete Toms for the heads up)
    Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 10:30am

    Comment of the Day


    I was a D.J. at a radio station for a few years in high school and college. Within the first few days on the air, I started to get hate mail and people calling to yell at me. I was only 16 at the time, and this bothered me a great deal. My boss, Bob the Program Director, told me not to worry. "Silence is way worse than anger," he said, "because at least anger means people are listening to you." Such advice only goes so far, but once in a while I get a comment that makes me think of Bob. Like this one, in response to this morning's Curt Schilling piece:

    Back off Schil. you jerk!

    I hear so many people talk about Curt "running his mouth" but never a word about the fact that most of the time the guy is dead-on right. He's called out players he KNEW were dirty and cheating the game. So what the hell is wrong with that?!

    How can anyone bust Curts chops for enjoying the spotlight when you can't turn on a TV without seeing the latest steroid cheat from the Yankees making another empty apology for doing "something" wrong.

    At least with Schilling we knew he wasn't out chasing mannish strippers and chomping 'roids like A-Fraud.

    Curt Schilling stands out in the world of MLB today simply because he speaks the truth regardless of the BS he's gotten from those who would prefer to remain blissfully ignorant of the games issues (like the jerk who wrote the article here).

    And why wouldn't a team like the Cubs be more than happy to bring in one of MLBs best playoff pitchers of the last twenty years?

    Instead of attacking Schilling you should be kissing his fat hairy a** for having enough moral integrity to speak the truth in a game that has lived and flourished off of lies for the last two decades.
    If anything the game needs more players like Curt.

    Man, I wish Schilling's mom had never found this blog.
    Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 12:18pm

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