Throwing you a bender because I just thought you should know...
So the math works out, 15 teams in each league, five in each division and so each team has a legitimate one in five shot of winning their division. All this baseball correctness brought to you by the decision to move the Astros to the American League and have interleague play all season long.
Which leaves us with baseball's attempt at creating interest during interleague play, the Rivalry Week! This is the week where the showcase rivalries are all played out. Baseball had to do something to try and make interleague play still look like a hot novelty. So we get to see all the intra-city matchups with New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. We have the intra-state games on tap in Ohio, Missouri, and Florida. We even get to witness the Orioles and Nationals play each other.
Unfortunately, all the teams in baseball are scheduled and that means some stretches for Rivalry Week. Bet you couldn't wait to see the Braves and Blue Jays battle it out for the Little Bobby Cox Jug. The Padres and Mariners games are intensified by the winner getting first dibs on the good whirlpool at the spring training complex they share. The Rockies and Astros are playing each other too, I suppose so baseball can see how far home runs can possibly go in the thin air off Houston pitching.
As the switch to two 15 team leagues was made in part to keep the schedule more balanced, at least Rivalry Week was reduced to four games instead of six like in the past. This helps keeps the balance aspect intact a little bit more, however, I suspect the Rays would love to have more games to beat up on the Marlins!
Even the real "rivalries" feel dull and antiquated, especially with interleague play taking place every day now. The specific blocks on the schedule that had interleague play previously did inject some enthusiasm and definitely brought an increase in attendance. The proof of decreased interest seems to show in that the networks (ESPN and the MLB Network) are really only showing the big markets of LA vs. LA and NY vs. NY, with a small dose of Boston and Philadelphia thrown in. The Orioles and Nationals both made the playoffs last year and are in the thick of it this year, but, alas, no national coverage. This, to me, is the network's backhanded way of saying the interleague aspect is no longer a draw, we need the larger markets.
At this point, I can't imagine the owners ever letting go of these games for the foreseeable future. So since they are here to stay for now, maybe they should be spread throughout the season. With interleague play a daily event now, staggering Rivalry Week matchups would allow all the rivalries that are interesting or escalated to draw national attention. By doing this, the contrived rivalries can be just another interleague matchup and not looked so down upon for the attempt to make it important.
Right now, we get to see the Rangers and the Diamondbacks as a good series of baseball and we shouldn't have to pretend it is anything more than that. The Tigers and Pirates can be something to watch as the Bucs try to conquer a long period of sub .500 baseball while the Tigers carry premium stars. But a rivalry worthy of hyped promotion? C'mon baseball, it is time to get this schedule fixed.
Now if only the Tribe could play the Marlins four times right now to snap out of their funk. Isn't a rematch of the 1997 World Series worthy of Rivalry Week?
Throwing you a bender because I just thought you should know...
It is the heart of baseball season now, so it seemed like a good time to check in on Manny Ramirez and see how one of the most interesting careers of all time was coming along. What, you thought his career was over? You thought he was done playing? Hardly! This baseball savant continues to play and has maybe even taken on the greatest role and responsibility of his entire career!
Just when you thought Ramirez had finally washed out and could no longer play the sport professionally, http://newkssportsshorts.blogspot.com/2012/06/are-gray-dreadlocks-done.html , he signs on to play with the EDA Rhinos of the Chinese Professional Baseball League.
Based on not being able to land a Major League job, and not even being able to find an organization that would give him a chance to work back up through the minors, Manny went looking overseas. He landed a few offers, but only one came with the added bonus of being responsible for saving the entire league from becoming defunct.
For those of you not familiar with the CPBL, let me provide some quick background and you can decide if Manny is the right man for the job.
A devoted baseball fan named Hung Teng-sheng, pronounced "Hank", formed his own team back in 1984, and paid its players professional level wages. As chairman of the Brother Hotel in Taiwan, he was able to pay players, name the team the Brother Elephants and dream of building it all into something much larger. He aspired to build a stadium and form a complete league within five years.
Seemed crazy, and slightly delayed, but in 1990, his Elephants took the field in the first game to officially start the inaugural season for the CPBL. The league had just four teams but did well and prospered throughout the early 90's. Unfortunately, in 1996, four players for the Elephants were abducted at gunpoint by local thugs who were part of the Chinese Mob that had lost huge money betting on a game. Then in 1997, a game fixing scandal hit the league as all but two players on the Chinese Times Eagles were implicated, then found guilty of throwing contests in order to appease the same Chinese Mob.
This was a tragedy for the small league and when attendance plummeted, the CPBL was all but out of business. A new rival league, the Taiwan Major League, was formed in order to replace the shamed original group of teams. The two leagues merged in 2003. Incredibly, gambling scandals again took down the league, with many teams becoming defunct, and it is back to where it started, a four team league.
Enter Manny Ramirez of the Rhinos, now on board to bring star power and credibility (Manny?) back to the Brother Elephants, Lamigo Monkeys and Uni-President 7-Eleven Lions of the CPBL. His first hit in the league was occasion for having the ball removed from play, and his first home run came in a game where the team set a record for single game attendance for a regular season game.
This is a pure hitter, currently batting .347 and leading the league with five homers, hoping to prove worthy of one more chance in the big leagues. To remind you he is a pure hitter, check out his base running below and remember, "Manny Being Manny" is a universal language! Now, if he can save the CPBL, he will have accomplished more than he ever could of in the Major Leagues.
Throwing you a bender because I just thought you should know...
The Sugar Land Skeeters of the independent Atlantic League, which is not affiliated with Major League Baseball, had 17 players with major league experience on their roster last year. This included 11 pitchers who had thrown in the Show.
According to the General Manager, Joe Klein, the one he would recommend to any major league club was not Roger Clemens but Scott Kazmir. Despite the good word, only one team, the Cleveland Indians, took the advice and decided to give Kazmir a shot in spring training. With the amount of teams looking for good pitching, needing fourth and fifth starters and looking for inexpensive solutions, it is shocking that no one took a chance or saw the possible return of Kazmir.
On the other hand, no pitcher who had fallen as far and had been gone as long as Kazmir had really ever made it back. This is a pitcher who had all lost all command of every facet of his game. He had last recorded a Major League win in 2010. He had gotten hurt, and thrown off his mechanics. He was demoted to the minors where he recorded a 17.02 ERA in 2011 and was topping out his fastball in the low 80's!
Now here he was in Sugar Land, Texas, a former All-Star and American League strikeout leader, pitching in the baseball equivalent of Siberia. But he got healthy, found his spots and developed his pitches enough to warrant the invite to camp in 2013. The Indians watched him throw his fastball in the low 90's again in spring training and were impressed. Apparently they were even more impressed when Kazmir assured them it would reach the mid 90's as the season progressed. Instead of heading North with the club as a long reliever or spot starter, Kazmir was inserted into the rotation as the fifth starter.
His motion is fluid again and his pitches are nasty. His command has returned and he has even added a change up and curveball which were non existent when he was winning strikeout titles with a fastball and slider. He has topped out at 96 mph on his fastball already (as promised) and walked just 5 with 24 strikeouts in his last four starts.
It was 32 months between wins in the majors for Scott and that type of spread is very rarely seen. Once gone to the depths of independent baseball, few players are ever heard from again. The "old" Kazmir is a distant memory and this "new" version is just 29 years old. Many were skeptical, I tuned in to his starts and watched with doubt. But keep an eye on this gem as we may witness even more amazing progress before this career is really over.
Scott Kazmir had definitely disappeared and gone away...and now he is back. Go Scott and Go Tribe!
Throwing you a bender because I just thought you should know...
Since AT& T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants opened, boaters and kayaks have floated around in McCovey Cove, beyond the right field wall. They gather during games for sunshine, conversation and hopes of catching a home run that leaves the park and enters the water.
The view of the game is non-existent from this spot, but the price is right, the views are gorgeous and for those that follow the game on a radio or cell phone app, the chance of snagging an elusive home run ball is an added bonus.
One of the detriments to floating in McCovey Cove is not having access to the fine selection of food and beverages offered inside the stadium...until last Sunday!
Akin to seeing Kris Kringle on your rooftop Christmas Eve, kayaks and boaters saw London Van Der Kamp come paddling into their view Sunday evening with a specially outfitted kayak custom made to be the first floating hot dog vendor! Everyone loves a hot dog at the ball game and these were even free for Sunday night.
Van Der Kamp had his kayak set up with warm fresh hot dogs, buns and of course, the mustard and ketchup containers. In addition, he had specially rigged paddle leashes that can tie two
kayaks together. This would allow him ample time to squirt all condiments on a hot dog without the customer floating away. It was pretty impressive to see him handling the dog, applying the condiments and handing it over all while operating a kayak. He even had a follow boat tagging behind him. For boating safety reasons? To monitor crowd control? No, to have a stash of extra hot dogs in case he ran out, of course. The beer guy never seems to have that idea!
As this was a free promotion staged by the four letter network, no word is yet available if the concept will stick. However, hot dog stats show it was a huge success and just another incentive for building any new ball park on the water. My guess is we will be seeing Van Der Kamp on a regular basis from now on.
I just hope he didn't have to suffer the oldest vendor frustration of being waved over by a fan only to be asked to send the beer guy over once he arrived! And if you are waiting for the beer guy, be patient. Don't bug the hot dog kayak dude, the soda raft man, or the pretzel dinghy guy. It's a ballpark, the beer life preserver bro is ALWAYS on his way over!
Throwing you a bender because I just thought you should know...
Seeing the giant American flag cover the wall recently at Fenway Park in
Boston got me to reminiscing about the Green Monster itself. Most
people call it the Green Monster, but those folks are "young" and part
of the modern crowd. In fact, the left field wall at Fenway, over 37
feet high and 231 feet long, was just a tall wall covered in
advertisements until 1947.
Most people think it was built to protect cars and businesses on Landsdowne Street but in fact, as there was not much car traffic in 1912, it was built to keep non paying spectators from seeing the game at no charge. The wall was constructed originally with the ballpark in 1912 and has evolved significantly over the past 101 years.
Originally, the Wall had a steep 10 foot embankment that ran in front of it. This was common back in that era and precluded the warning track. An outfielder knew he was close to the wall when he started running uphill and saw ads out of the corner of his eyes.
Fenway was unique in its' infancy as they permitted fans to sit on this embankment and thus, be in play during the game. A rope was implemented to keep the crowd from coming farther onto the field, but skilled Red Sox fans were adept at dropping the rope to allow Duffy Lewis, the Boston left fielder to run amongst the crowd, climb the embankment and field balls that were hit there. The ledge became known as Duffy's Cliff for years and lasted up through 1933.
Upon opening in 1912, the wall was made of wood and burnt down with much of Fenway in 1934. Reconstruction of the wall used tin to prevent further disasters. That has since been replaced by a hard plastic which now makes up the Green Monster. It was completely covered in advertisements originally and wasn't painted green until 1947.
The Monster houses a famous manual scoreboard which was originally designed to score the game. Over the years, it has added out of town scores and the American League East standings. Two operators stay perched within the wall during games to make the updates and come out via a small door in between innings with a ladder to make updates they cannot reach from within.
There is even a ladder attached to the Monster ascending all the way to the top. This was used to remove baseballs that had been hit into the net above the Monster. However, as the net was recently removed and seats added on top of the wall, this is no longer necessary. But the ladder itself has never been removed, remains in fair territory, and outfielders are still forced to play the ball as it bounces crazily off the useless obstacle.
The Green Monster remained entirely green until 1999 when certain advertisements were added back. It even contains Morse Code now as a shout out to former owners Tom and Jean Yawkey.
So architect James McLaughlin had a vision and $650,000 to work with starting in 1911. His vision for a stadium came to fruition and his direction to protect the open area in left field from non paying spectators has left us one of the most recognizable baseball features in any ballpark ever.
