Baseball. Blogging. Whenever.

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

Thursday, November 05, 2009

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

    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

    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

    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

    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

    Friday, November 06, 2009

    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

    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

    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

    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

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