Vegas 93, Vegas 98, Vegas 00 (10 year show), Vegas 03, Vegas 06
VIC 07
EV LA1 08
Seattle1 09, Seattle2 09, Salt Lake 09, LA4 09
Columbus 10
EV LA 11
Vancouver 11
Missoula 12
Portland 13, Spokane 13
St. Paul 14, Denver 14
I really don't like that trade for detroit. not at all
REALLY?????????? How come not?
detroit had plenty of pitching. I wouldn't have traded my starting CF if I had aspirations of winning it all. Rajai Davis stinks. They might have upgraded their rotation, but that wasn't an area of need. They weakened their defense and lineup.
Defense looked pretty fucking phenomenal last night.
Davis didn't play. Gotta figure he will get the majority of PT in CF come playoff time. Big downgrade at a key position.
I don't like the trade for the tigers. We will see how it plays out
They only scored one run in a loss. I think there's plenty more where that came from
I really don't like that trade for detroit. not at all
REALLY?????????? How come not?
detroit had plenty of pitching. I wouldn't have traded my starting CF if I had aspirations of winning it all. Rajai Davis stinks. They might have upgraded their rotation, but that wasn't an area of need. They weakened their defense and lineup.
Defense looked pretty fucking phenomenal last night.
Davis didn't play. Gotta figure he will get the majority of PT in CF come playoff time. Big downgrade at a key position.
I don't like the trade for the tigers. We will see how it plays out
They only scored one run in a loss. I think there's plenty more where that came from
Yep
Don't see how it is this clear cut. Verlander went down and they are starting Buck Farmer, so they clearly need pitching, especially with such a thin bullpen. You can argue that Smyly is good enough to start and he and Jackson are more valuable than Price, but I am not sure it is that concrete.
longest playoff drought in any of the four major U.S. sports. 29 years.
If I had known then what I know now...
Vegas 93, Vegas 98, Vegas 00 (10 year show), Vegas 03, Vegas 06
VIC 07
EV LA1 08
Seattle1 09, Seattle2 09, Salt Lake 09, LA4 09
Columbus 10
EV LA 11
Vancouver 11
Missoula 12
Portland 13, Spokane 13
St. Paul 14, Denver 14
That is spectacular on many levels. My favorite part? "Got up in the morning, took the most perfect, double-tapered ship I've ever had in my life. True Story. Whose the pitchers in this game?"
That is spectacular on many levels. My favorite part? "Got up in the morning, took the most perfect, double-tapered ship I've ever had in my life. True Story. Whose the pitchers in this game?"
)
yeah....I love how he follows the player around towards the end just to finish the story. for me, it's up there with that bill o'reilly blow up video (WE'LL DO IT LIVE!!!!) as the best things to ever appear on youtube
Is it any surprise, at all, that Reinsdorf had Boston play along with his little game trying to get Werner elected as Commissioner? Of course the small market Boston Red Sox would want a hard ass who hates players making money as the Commissioner
I really don't like that trade for detroit. not at all
REALLY?????????? How come not?
detroit had plenty of pitching. I wouldn't have traded my starting CF if I had aspirations of winning it all. Rajai Davis stinks. They might have upgraded their rotation, but that wasn't an area of need. They weakened their defense and lineup.
Defense looked pretty fucking phenomenal last night.
Davis didn't play. Gotta figure he will get the majority of PT in CF come playoff time. Big downgrade at a key position.
I don't like the trade for the tigers. We will see how it plays out
They only scored one run in a loss. I think there's plenty more where that came from
Yep
Don't see how it is this clear cut. Verlander went down and they are starting Buck Farmer, so they clearly need pitching, especially with such a thin bullpen. You can argue that Smyly is good enough to start and he and Jackson are more valuable than Price, but I am not sure it is that concrete.
Yep.
Also, smyly has been better than verlander this year
Dombrowski should get fired if they cant rally and win the division (entirely plausible).
Bottom line is it was a move that could cost them a run at a title this year
Sad to see what happened to Garrett Richards of the Angels. I love seeing young new pitchers making their way. He was putting up some amazing numbers in the AL.
That was my initial thought! Don't have to forfeit a draft pick or lose international bonus pool money though. Different type of player than the previous cuban defectors, and could be a huge bust, but we'll see how he transitions to the bigs soon enough.
PJ: 2003 Mansfield: July 2 2004 Boston: Sept 28 & 29 2005 Montreal: Sept 15 2006 Boston: May 24 & 25 2008 Hartford: June 27, Mansfield: June 28, 2010 Boston: May 17 2013 Worcester: Oct 15, Hartford: Oct 25, 2016 Hampton: April 18, Raleigh: April 20 (cancelled), Columbia: April 21. Quebec: May 5. Boston (Fenway): August 7
great stuff....kind of like bud wringing his hands over steroids....
he sucks.
If I had known then what I know now...
Vegas 93, Vegas 98, Vegas 00 (10 year show), Vegas 03, Vegas 06
VIC 07
EV LA1 08
Seattle1 09, Seattle2 09, Salt Lake 09, LA4 09
Columbus 10
EV LA 11
Vancouver 11
Missoula 12
Portland 13, Spokane 13
St. Paul 14, Denver 14
As of today: AL - Baltimore, KC, LA are the division leaders....Oakland and Seattle are the WC NL - Washington, Milwaukee, LA are the division leaders....St Louis & SF are the WC
Since the Reds decided to quit at the All Star Break I am rooting for a geographic rivalry World Series. Could have:Balt/Wash.....KC/STL....LA/LA....SF/Oak....
Would love to see Baltimore v Washington but suspect out of those that LA/LA is the most likely.
i think baseball has a lot of long term problems. games are too long, they start too late in the post season, they have no idea how to market their best players (plus more and more their best players don't even care to learn how to speak english).....and kids in this country are playing other sports
Over at the New Yorker, Ben McGrath has a brief, characteristically thoughtful essay up about a question that people have been asking basically for as long as the game has been played but which, lately, seems to actually have something to it: What's wrong with baseball?
As he freely concedes, going by measures like attendance and revenue, everything is just fine, and this is where a lot of partisans are happy to leave it. More people are going to games, and players and owners are making more money, than ever before; definitionally, nothing is wrong at all.
The problem is that this obviously isn't right. Baseball has as talented a cohort of young players as it's had in a long time right now—Mike Trout and Clayton Kershaw and Andrew McCutchen and Yasiel Puig and Jose Abreu and Andrelton Simmons and on and on—and yet they're all basically anonymous. Meanwhile, the dismal ratings for baseball's jewel events reflect the reality that baseball is now essentially a regional game, its success more a function of a bubble in television rights fees and of the money and free time its aging fanbase has with the kids out of the house and retirement approaching than anything else. The economic argument that baseball is doing great and the cultural one that it's increasingly irrelevant, it turns, aren't so neatly separated. As McGrath asks, "Who will fill the seats vacated by Boomers after they come up lame?"
To answer that, it's probably worth remembering how we got here. To name just a few things, games really are too long and slow, with too little going on in them (the decrease in offense is almost entirely about out-of-control strikeout rates); there's ever-increasing competition from other sports; youth participation is down for all sorts of complex reasons; and the introduction of the unbalanced schedule did more than most people realize to make baseball an even more intensely regional game. Given all that and whatever else you can come up with, it makes sense that baseball is in a relative decline.
The main issue, though—and something that McGrath curiously doesn't bring up—is probably just that baseball is now dealing with the consequences of having spent a solid decade telling anyone who would listen that baseball is awful and no one should watch it.
Let's take a normal 25-year-old, born in 1989. He would have spent his formative years as a sports fan in the immediate aftermath of a canceled World Series, hearing that greedy players were destroying the game and that the dynastic Yankees team dominating the sport was such an affront to its competitive integrity that drastic measures had to be taken to give other teams any kind of chance at winning. He would have heard about the commissioner touring the country threatening to abolish various teams, some of them successful ones. He would have seen the league enthusiastically cooperating with a congressional investigation that all but treated many of its most famous players as criminals; the league touting an owner-written report claiming that those players were frauds, cheats, and liars; and the league and the government working together with small-time con men to destroy the very best of those players.
From the perspective of owners, all of this made sense. A majority of owners had an interest in (falsely) claiming that their teams just couldn't compete, because they wanted to rig a system where they would be all but guaranteed profits. They had an interest in depicting players as greedy, selfish cheats, both because it gave them back leverage they'd lost when they forced the cancellation of a World Series and because it appealed to the sensibilities of the well-off older people who were filling their stadiums. They had an interest in telling an entire generation not to think of any ballplayer as any kind of hero. The only problem, really, is that everyone listened.
There's no obvious reason why a 25-year-old would be an especially big baseball fan; there's no reason, having seen baseball ruin rather than protect the reputations of its best players, why the marketing companies that make great athletes transcendent stars would want to be involved in promoting Mike Trout or Clayton Kershaw as something more than exceptional ballplayers; and there's no mystery in what's wrong here. The people running baseball told everyone that the game was broken and that the players—who weren't doing anything their peers in other sports weren't doing—were frauds. Meanwhile, rivals took a somewhat more sensible approach. Now the game has to deal with the consequences of people more or less buying the political line adopted by its management class, which involved depicting the very thing they were selling as not worth buying. The real question is whether they learned their lesson.
i know....but the lack of interest of the young bucks, has to be the biggest concern of all to me. that and most casual fans do not even know who mike trout is.
i know....but the lack of interest of the young bucks, has to be the biggest concern of all to me. that and most casual fans do not even know who mike trout is.
I don't think the mike trout thing is a huge issue. He hasn't really been on the national stage yet and plays on the west coast. It will happen.
I do agree that there has to be concern about youth baseball, especially in cities, but I don't think it is doomsday because it is a diverse game
Mike trout is 22 yrs old. His lack of popularity would be an issue if he was 30
Non-issue. People are not smart
Yeah, agreed. He is likely going to be the most popular player in the game for the next decade or so if he can keep it up.
i believe griffey was the same age at this point in his career. the hype surrounding him at that time completely eclipses that of trout, and he played in a much smaller market. it is night and day. i think it's a real problem, guys. hope i'm wrong.
There's no obvious reason why a 25-year-old would be an especially big baseball fan; there's no reason, having seen baseball ruin rather than protect the reputations of its best players,
see: Bonds, Barry
the Giants of my youth were packed with african americans.....mays. mccovey, bonds sr., maddox, matthews, jim ray hart.....there are no african americans on the present team and really haven't been any of note in the past 25 years, save for Barry and kevin mitchell (a beast!)
length of games could be easily fixed (see olbermann, above) but MLB doesn't really want that. I dont think manfred will be much better than bud.
If I had known then what I know now...
Vegas 93, Vegas 98, Vegas 00 (10 year show), Vegas 03, Vegas 06
VIC 07
EV LA1 08
Seattle1 09, Seattle2 09, Salt Lake 09, LA4 09
Columbus 10
EV LA 11
Vancouver 11
Missoula 12
Portland 13, Spokane 13
St. Paul 14, Denver 14
There's no obvious reason why a 25-year-old would be an especially big baseball fan; there's no reason, having seen baseball ruin rather than protect the reputations of its best players,
see: Bonds, Barry
the Giants of my youth were packed with african americans.....mays. mccovey, bonds sr., maddox, matthews, jim ray hart.....there are no african americans on the present team and really haven't been any of note in the past 25 years, save for Barry and kevin mitchell (a beast!)
length of games could be easily fixed (see olbermann, above) but MLB doesn't really want that. I dont think manfred will be much better than bud.
there is not one black guy on the giants right now??? jesus...
i bet in 10 years, the majority of mlb players will speak predominantly spanish....ok, maybe 12-15 years, but i bet it's coming sooner than later.
the one good takeaway i had from the little league world series, were the best us teams seemed to be from inner cities, made up of mostly african americans.
Comments
Vegas 93, Vegas 98, Vegas 00 (10 year show), Vegas 03, Vegas 06
VIC 07
EV LA1 08
Seattle1 09, Seattle2 09, Salt Lake 09, LA4 09
Columbus 10
EV LA 11
Vancouver 11
Missoula 12
Portland 13, Spokane 13
St. Paul 14, Denver 14
Vegas 93, Vegas 98, Vegas 00 (10 year show), Vegas 03, Vegas 06
VIC 07
EV LA1 08
Seattle1 09, Seattle2 09, Salt Lake 09, LA4 09
Columbus 10
EV LA 11
Vancouver 11
Missoula 12
Portland 13, Spokane 13
St. Paul 14, Denver 14
"Got up in the morning, took the most perfect, double-tapered ship I've ever had in my life. True Story. Whose the pitchers in this game?"
http://www.csnphilly.com/baseball-philadelphia-phillies/robinson-cano-sends-thank-you-larry-bowa
Also, smyly has been better than verlander this year
Dombrowski should get fired if they cant rally and win the division (entirely plausible).
Bottom line is it was a move that could cost them a run at a title this year
2003 Mansfield: July 2
2004 Boston: Sept 28 & 29
2005 Montreal: Sept 15
2006 Boston: May 24 & 25
2008 Hartford: June 27, Mansfield: June 28,
2010 Boston: May 17
2013 Worcester: Oct 15, Hartford: Oct 25,
2016 Hampton: April 18, Raleigh: April 20 (cancelled), Columbia: April 21. Quebec: May 5. Boston (Fenway): August 7
EV Solo: Boston 8/2/08, Boston 6/16/11
he sucks.
Vegas 93, Vegas 98, Vegas 00 (10 year show), Vegas 03, Vegas 06
VIC 07
EV LA1 08
Seattle1 09, Seattle2 09, Salt Lake 09, LA4 09
Columbus 10
EV LA 11
Vancouver 11
Missoula 12
Portland 13, Spokane 13
St. Paul 14, Denver 14
Those that can be trusted can change their mind.
fuck him.
AL - Baltimore, KC, LA are the division leaders....Oakland and Seattle are the WC
NL - Washington, Milwaukee, LA are the division leaders....St Louis & SF are the WC
Since the Reds decided to quit at the All Star Break I am rooting for a geographic rivalry World Series.
Could have:Balt/Wash.....KC/STL....LA/LA....SF/Oak....
Would love to see Baltimore v Washington but suspect out of those that LA/LA is the most likely.
http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/twilight-baseball
http://deadspin.com/whats-wrong-with-baseball-1628473196
What's Wrong With Baseball?
Over at the New Yorker, Ben McGrath has a brief, characteristically thoughtful essay up about a question that people have been asking basically for as long as the game has been played but which, lately, seems to actually have something to it: What's wrong with baseball?
As he freely concedes, going by measures like attendance and revenue, everything is just fine, and this is where a lot of partisans are happy to leave it. More people are going to games, and players and owners are making more money, than ever before; definitionally, nothing is wrong at all.
The problem is that this obviously isn't right. Baseball has as talented a cohort of young players as it's had in a long time right now—Mike Trout and Clayton Kershaw and Andrew McCutchen and Yasiel Puig and Jose Abreu and Andrelton Simmons and on and on—and yet they're all basically anonymous. Meanwhile, the dismal ratings for baseball's jewel events reflect the reality that baseball is now essentially a regional game, its success more a function of a bubble in television rights fees and of the money and free time its aging fanbase has with the kids out of the house and retirement approaching than anything else. The economic argument that baseball is doing great and the cultural one that it's increasingly irrelevant, it turns, aren't so neatly separated. As McGrath asks, "Who will fill the seats vacated by Boomers after they come up lame?"
To answer that, it's probably worth remembering how we got here. To name just a few things, games really are too long and slow, with too little going on in them (the decrease in offense is almost entirely about out-of-control strikeout rates); there's ever-increasing competition from other sports; youth participation is down for all sorts of complex reasons; and the introduction of the unbalanced schedule did more than most people realize to make baseball an even more intensely regional game. Given all that and whatever else you can come up with, it makes sense that baseball is in a relative decline.
The main issue, though—and something that McGrath curiously doesn't bring up—is probably just that baseball is now dealing with the consequences of having spent a solid decade telling anyone who would listen that baseball is awful and no one should watch it.
Let's take a normal 25-year-old, born in 1989. He would have spent his formative years as a sports fan in the immediate aftermath of a canceled World Series, hearing that greedy players were destroying the game and that the dynastic Yankees team dominating the sport was such an affront to its competitive integrity that drastic measures had to be taken to give other teams any kind of chance at winning. He would have heard about the commissioner touring the country threatening to abolish various teams, some of them successful ones. He would have seen the league enthusiastically cooperating with a congressional investigation that all but treated many of its most famous players as criminals; the league touting an owner-written report claiming that those players were frauds, cheats, and liars; and the league and the government working together with small-time con men to destroy the very best of those players.
From the perspective of owners, all of this made sense. A majority of owners had an interest in (falsely) claiming that their teams just couldn't compete, because they wanted to rig a system where they would be all but guaranteed profits. They had an interest in depicting players as greedy, selfish cheats, both because it gave them back leverage they'd lost when they forced the cancellation of a World Series and because it appealed to the sensibilities of the well-off older people who were filling their stadiums. They had an interest in telling an entire generation not to think of any ballplayer as any kind of hero. The only problem, really, is that everyone listened.
There's no obvious reason why a 25-year-old would be an especially big baseball fan; there's no reason, having seen baseball ruin rather than protect the reputations of its best players, why the marketing companies that make great athletes transcendent stars would want to be involved in promoting Mike Trout or Clayton Kershaw as something more than exceptional ballplayers; and there's no mystery in what's wrong here. The people running baseball told everyone that the game was broken and that the players—who weren't doing anything their peers in other sports weren't doing—were frauds. Meanwhile, rivals took a somewhat more sensible approach. Now the game has to deal with the consequences of people more or less buying the political line adopted by its management class, which involved depicting the very thing they were selling as not worth buying. The real question is whether they learned their lesson.
Also, the wings suck. Youre better off watching the lions
Looking fwd to my first true detroit experience when pj is there in a few weeks. Hope the tigers are still in it.
I do agree that there has to be concern about youth baseball, especially in cities, but I don't think it is doomsday because it is a diverse game
Non-issue. People are not smart
the Giants of my youth were packed with african americans.....mays. mccovey, bonds sr., maddox, matthews, jim ray hart.....there are no african americans on the present team and really haven't been any of note in the past 25 years, save for Barry and kevin mitchell (a beast!)
length of games could be easily fixed (see olbermann, above) but MLB doesn't really want that. I dont think manfred will be much better than bud.
Vegas 93, Vegas 98, Vegas 00 (10 year show), Vegas 03, Vegas 06
VIC 07
EV LA1 08
Seattle1 09, Seattle2 09, Salt Lake 09, LA4 09
Columbus 10
EV LA 11
Vancouver 11
Missoula 12
Portland 13, Spokane 13
St. Paul 14, Denver 14
i bet in 10 years, the majority of mlb players will speak predominantly spanish....ok, maybe 12-15 years, but i bet it's coming sooner than later.
the one good takeaway i had from the little league world series, were the best us teams seemed to be from inner cities, made up of mostly african americans.