April 2008

Gut Check Time: Can you name these baseball bellies? – Big League Stew – MLB – Yahoo! Sports

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/blog/big_league_stew/post/Gut-Check-Time-Can-you-name-these-baseball-bell?urn=mlb,79693


This is really funny. See if you can guess the baseball gut. 

The Official Site of Major League Baseball: News: Zito to work things out in bullpen

http://oakland.athletics.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20080428&content_id=2605660&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb


I feel bad for Zito. He was my favorite player for years. All those years with the Athletics he was so good and now look at him.  I really wonder what happened to him. It is not for lack of trying because he wrks hard and is always tweaking and working on his mechanics and delivery.  Lets hope going to the bullpen helps.  This is just funny and sad all at once.  

Holy Toledo Athletics Fans

Holy Toledo we have the best team in the American League
West!!!! Well for a day anyways.  I
want to savor the fact that my team played so well tonight and that they are 1
game better than the Angels.  The
Athletics have won every three game series they have played so far this season
meaning they have taken at least two out of the three games.  Tonight the Athletics beat the Angels
whom they were tied with for first place. 
They gave the Angels a good beating of 14 – 2 and now have the best
record in the entire American league! It was an amazing game and again bizarre
things kept happening, as they seem to do with the Athletics.  Thomas got a triple and almost hit for
the cycle, which was in my mind the most amazing thing to happen tonight.  It was his first triple since 2002 and
he added a single and a double to come just a homerun short of the cycle.  Daric Barton hit a three run homerun
while Hannahan and Brown each hit solo shots.  Brown has the second highest number of RBIs in the American
league with 25! Gaudin won his third straight game and while that is great for
him it makes me feel bad for Blanton. 
He never has any luck.  The
Angels pitching coach got evicted for arguing with the home plate umpire about
the strike zone he was calling which I just loved. I listened to the first part
of the game on the radio and on one of the announcers eloquently spoke to what
the Athletics have been able to do. 
“It may not always be pretty but they play to win.” That sums up the
2008 Athletics right there.  All in
all it was an amazing game and I am still reveling in the after glow of the
win. I hope we can keep this up tomorrow.  

What?

Frank Thomas just got a triple. It was his
first in 6 years. This is going to be a crazy series with the
Angels. 

Not Hitting

The Athletics are not hiting.  The hitters look anemic right now.  Last night they did not have a hit from the 4th to
the 9th innings. Today they looked really bad up until the 9th
inning and that was just the Mariners closer screwing up.  Cust is not living up to last years
numbers, and the DH spot is up in the air or day to day.  The third spot in the lineup usually
reserved for a teams best hitter constantly changes.  All of this worries me.  The main reason we are able to win is standout pitching and
good defense.    If it weren’t for these two
factors we would be dead ducks. 
Thank goodness the rest of the American League West isn’t very good. At
this point I don’t care how we win just that we do.  I’ll take smoke and mirrors any day over a loss.  

Day of Silence and Bizarre Occurrences

Today
was the Day Of Silence and while I was silent the Athletics were not.  The Day of Silence is a day to bring
light to the LGBTQI youth around the globe that must keep their sexual
orientation silent.  Today it was
in honor of 14 year old Lawrence King who in February was shot in his classroom
for being gay.  He died 9 days
latter.  This makes me sick to my
stomach and today I was silent.  I
was silent for Lawerence I was silent for my best friend and the thousands of
LGBTQI youth that have no voice.  As
I type this I can barely see through my tears because this issue is close
to my heart.  I wish the world was
a more accepting place and I wish LGBTQI people were treated as equal.  It would be great if a famous current
baseball player would come out because it would shatter a lot of the
stereotypes that exist and hopefully make people more accepting.  In my perfect world sexual orientation
would not matter one iota but the world is not perfect.  While I know many of you were not
silent today I ask that you take a moment and think about what it would be like
to spend every day living a lie and not being who you are.  It would be very hard to live each day
that way.  I also ask that you love
and accept those different from you no matter what their difference may
be.  Spend this weekend being as
loving, caring, thoughtful and open-minded as you can.   Hey I might even befriend an
Angels fan or possible a Yankees fan. 
It could happen.

 

The
game today was one of those bizarre how did we win that one games.  I love them because weird stuff always
happens that you may not see all too often.  The opposing pitcher walked 4 batters, the Athletics only
had 3 hits total, a run scored on a wild pitch, a walk was issued with the
bases loaded, and the opposing pitcher Batista left in the second with a mild
groin strain.  All in all it was a
crazy game.  The Athletics are tied
with the Angels for first in the division.  I never thought I would see that. Again all around a bizarre
day. 

 

 

Big Hurt, Big Pain – are they really on Oakland’s radar?

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2008/04/21/SP2L108UTF.DTL


This article is funny because it talks about the possible signing of either Bonds or Thomas to the Athletics and just a few days later the Athletics signed Thomas.  I still can’t believe he is back with the Athletics after a year with the Blue Jays.  What is even more amazing is that the Athletics have become the little engine that could.  They are much to everyone’s amazement winning games.  Beane’s plan of a young rebuilding team might just go and become a contender in the playoffs. This article is interesting because it says Beane may have to shift his focus to the playoffs and try to get help to be a true contender.  I say it is too early to say. There is still lots of baseball yet to be played and the Athletics have not used the DL nearly enough yet.  We’ll have to wait and see. I would love them to go all the way though. 

There’s more than one way to score runs

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2008/04/24/SP1V10AUDI.DTL

The Athletics are leading the league with smoke and mirrors.  Hey that is fine by me.  Some how they are finding ways to string hits together and get the win.  You will never see them as a strong home run or power team and yet they have amazing games like today.  The above linked article is really good talking about how the Athletics are able to have such a low home run average and a relatively high runs scored average.  I love the scrappy factor abut the Athletics. We are composed of guys like Ellis that fly under the national radar but that are amazing and get the job done without pomp and circumstance.  It is so important to have players that play the game the way it was meant to be played and for the right reasons.  So many of the Athletics are that way.  I would take scrappy over the Yankees any day.  

Working for Peanuts: Your Pay vs. Barry Zito

http://www.sfgate.com/webdb/zitopay/



This is hilarious! If you click on this link you can see how long it would take for you to make as much as Zito makes in one year.  It also tells you how many Garlic fries you can each afford.  Trust me Zito can afford way more garlic fries than you but really who would want that many? 

And the biggest load award goes to …

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/04/23/SPK010AHF6.DTL



This is an interesting article on the biggest wastes in Bay Area sports.  Zito is the number one of course and it goes through football and basketball as well.  Chavy is listed for all of his injuries and Bonds is named the biggest load and that his ghost is still haunting the Bay.  It takes a rather sympathetic look at the players and doesn’t blame them for the decline in production. A different spin on the situation.  
« older posts | back to blog home |
Theme: MLB “retro” | Get a free blog at WordPress.com
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.