Category: misc

Posts that don’t quite fit into any other categories.

Jeff Kent

Why, oh, why could Jeff Kent not have looked out at his truck yesterday morning and decided it needed a quick wash?

Original comments…

Steve: Hello friends, I haven’t checked in for a while but are any of you Damon lovers troubled by the fact that he’s gone from hero to zero in about 10 seconds? His .009 batting average is not going to help the Red Sox dispatch the Yankees and it will also make it difficult for him to get that Pert plus endorsement even though Piazza is kind of washed up. In no way am I trying to say “I told you so” because I never did and am frankly upset at his poor performance but I would say at least 75% of the Red Sox problems start with Mr. Lovelylocks. What say you who have been lining up to get his autograph on your boobs all season? And I don’t just mean Stacey!

ps Levi is excused from replying because he has bigger fish to fry right now. I bet his sinker is almost ready and he’s warming up to take on Beltran.

Levi: You’re right about Damon, sad to say, but he did score the winning run last night.

Oh, and I owe you whatever it is I owe you, as Mr. Bonds did not hit .400. Aargh.

thatbob: My adulation of Damon has almost nothing to do with him being a baseball player, so likewise has almost nothing to do with his slump. I mean, I feel bad for him professionally, and if we were on speaking terms I might even suggest a shave and a haircut to, you know, try and change his luck. But I would still want him to grow it all out again in the post-season.

Has any writing on this blog suggested that (we) like him because he’s any good?

stacey: yeah, i’d have to say i’m with bob on this one. my all-cute team has absolutely nothing to do with baseball talent. although johnny’s slump is really heart-rending.

Toby: Darn! I knew there was something I forgot the last time I saw Levi. I meant to get his autograph on my boobs.

thatbob: sure hope this link works:

http://www.boston.com/ae/events/halloween/pumpkin_photos?pg=7

Luke, hanger-on: J Damon homered to right, K Millar, B Mueller and O Cabrera scored.

How ’bout them apples?!?

Luke, hanger-on: J Damon homered to right, O Cabrera scored.

And them apples!

I’m never cutting my hair again.

thatbob: Luke (and everyone not watching from the Rocketship) sorry you missed the discussion we had (initiated by Matthew or Ross?) about JD hitting for the SuperCycle. You know: a 4 run homer, a 3 run homer, a 2 run homer, and a solo shot. It looked like he was working towards it with 2 men on for a couple of at-bats, but alas. Well, maybe we’ll get to see it in The Series.

Two more things

1) I really like watching Johan Santana, even when he isn’t completely on his game, like last night. The patented Fox Extreme Nosehair Closeups showed me a man who is terminally worried, kind of like John Tudor used to look. Midway through the game I decided what the look on Santana’s face is: it’s the look of a man who can see the future, but is powerless to change it! Like, “Oh, no, no, no. I’m going to throw a hanger and he’s going to belt it out of the park. Why must that be my destiny?” Tragic. But if that’s his look when he’s pitching like Bob Gibson, imagine how tortured he’d look if he ever looked into the future and saw himself giving up a run!

2) Jim sent a packet of baseball articles and such last week, and two elements of it found their way to our mantelpiece last night. For October, we try to replace the usual items on our mantel with baseball-related items, one for every team in the playoffs. The only thing I couldn’t find last night was a picture of William T. Sherman to represent the impending downfall of the Braves. From Jim I got a big photo of Don Zimmer, which might, if we’re lucky, curse the Yankees for letting him go, and as a general backdrop, the chart Jim used to figure out the logistics of our trip. So thanks, Jim!

Original comments…

Jim: You actually have my father to thank for the Don Zimmer picture. He gave it to me when I was visiting him in May. I think he had used it to test his color printer, or something like that.

Jason: Is it framed?

stacey: it’s framed with our hatred of the yankees (which is crocheted with care out of my love for the cardinals, johnny damon, eric gagne, baseball playoffs, and beer).

Happy baseball-related birthday to me

A couple posts ago, unhealthy I alluded to the fact that it was my birthday last week. Yes, help I turned 30 on September 22nd. To mark the occasion, my grandfather sent me this card, which he made using his computer. The front…

And the inside…

(Yes, Levi, it says the correct “James H.” Deal with it.)

Original comments…

Levi: Does that mean your middle name is really “Hiberius”?

I wish I’d thought of this

Back in March, a man named Michael Mahan, who has more money than me, bought the entire right-field pavilion (bleachers) at Dodger Stadium for two of the three games against the Giants the last weekend of the season. With that big a group buy, the tickets cost only $3.50 each (face value $6.00). He sold some to a broker, donated some to Big Brothers/Big Sisters, and has been selling the rest through his web site for $15.00 each.

Everyone who buys a ticket, though — and the big brothers and big sisters themselves — has to sign an 8-page contract that if they catch a Barry Bonds home run ball, they have to give it to him, and then he’ll sell the ball and later split the money with him.

The Dodgers found out about all this, and they’re a little annoyed, but there’s not much they can do; in California, selling tickets above face value is only illegal on stadium property. They also threatened to let people into the pavilion for free during the games if there is a significant number of empty seats, but Mahan says he’s distributed almost all of the tickets, so that shouldn’t be an issue.

This was all on the front page of today’s L.A. Times, but reading that article requires registration, whereas baseballrelated.com doesn’t. I think the reason this made the front page today is because Bonds has gotten near 700 home runs a little faster than Mahan predicted back in March.

I’m going to the Dodgers game tonight, but sitting in the “reserved” (third) level, behind home plate, so no Barry Bonds home run balls for me. Well, since they’re playing the Padres, a Bonds home run ball would be highly unlikely no matter where I’m sitting.

Original comments…

Jim: It wasn’t in the L.A. Times article, so I forgot to bring up Charlie Sheen buying the entire left-field bleachers for a game at Anaheim in 1996. (“Anybody can catch a foul ball,” he supposedly said. “I want to catch a fair ball.”) The Angels apparently didn’t even make him fill up the section, because by all accounts, it was just Sheen and a couple of friends sitting out there. No one was in danger of hitting any milestone home runs in that game, though, and Sheen went home empty-handed.

Levi: You know, I was just retelling that story to Luke on Monday, but I had Sheen at Comiskey Park. My mistake, I assume, since Jim is known to be mistake-free.

Dan: Jim knows(tm).

What were they thinking? , or, Business as Usual in Tampa Bay

The Tampa Bay Devil Rays have released 1B/DH Randall Simon.

Now, this confuses me. That is to say, I’m not really confused about why a team might release a guy who’s managed only a .188/.266/.266 line for the year. What confuses me is why you’d release him a mere 20 days after you signed him? You might remember that I picked on the Pirates for releasing him a month ago when they had nothing to play for and no reason not to keep the guy around. But this is far less explicable.

What could the Devil Rays have seen in Simon’s 20 at-bats for them over the past 20 days that his whole career couldn’t have prepared them for? Did he sleep with someone’s wife? Does hs have particularly stinky socks? Did he steal Rocco Baldelli’s glove and try to sell it to a collector? Did that walking Sausage invasion of Florida that the D-Rays were worried about fizzle out? Does Tampa Bay have enough prospects that they needed every space on their 40-man rost . . . oh, that sentence is just too silly to finish typing.

Regardless, it appears that Simon’s career may have come to an end. So the next time we all gather, let’s raise a glass to the wildest-swinging hitter I’ve ever seen.

Original comments…

Jim: Sausage invasion? He sure wasn’t helping the Devil Rays defend Florida against the hurricane invasion!

Dan: Oh, this reminds me.. So as to avoid all the inevitable Ivan the Terrible references to that new hurricane, I want to refer to that storm as Hurricane Pudge. Who’s with me?

Levi: I’m so there. Great idea.

A certain something in the air

I apologize for being a couple of days late with this, but here you go:

Did you notice on Wednesday morning that the world was a bit brighter? The sky a bit more blue? The normally sad-eyed businessmen downtown walking with a bit of life in their step?

Maybe the pretty girl you see every day on the train raised her eyes over the top of her RedEye and flashed you a conspiratorial smile? Maybe a group of schoolkids on a field trip walked by your office window singing “Kumbaya“? Maybe the sweet strains of “Morning in Cartoonland” drifted your way across a meadow?

Ah, yes. For at least one day, America was a happier, sunnier, more hopeful place. The Yankees had lost, 22-0 the night before, the worst defeat in Yankee history. And to paraphrase Ernest L. Thayer, “Oh, everywhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright. The band is playing everywhere, and everywhere hearts are light.
And, everywhere men are laughing, and little children shout.”

Such wonderful times come so rarely, one must savor them. So raise a glass, baseball fans, Americans, humans. To home, to country, to Johnny Damon’s beard, to history!

The baseball-related coda

I’m home in North Hollywood.

On the flight from Dallas to Burbank, I was sitting in front of Lancaster Jethawks manager Wally Backman. I only knew this because he had a conversation with the 10-year-old unaccompanied minor sitting next to him, which included this exchange.

Wally: I had to go to Florida because I got in trouble.
Boy: What did you do?
Wally: I bumped an umpire.

The lesson here is that when you’re the manager of a Class A team, you have to fly coach to your disciplinary hearings.

More about the trip to come.

Original comments…

Dan: No. 6! Nice! Best drag bunter of the ’80s.

Jim: I didn’t realize he was a former Met at the time, because I didn’t recognize the name, and he didn’t go into his whole playing career with the kid (but he did say he had played with Barry Bonds in Pittsburgh in 1990). They talked more about the current state of the Diamondbacks — since the Jethawks are the D-Backs’ Class A team — and the kid’s Little League team.

Now, if he had been sitting next to me, I probably would never have known who he was, because he probably wouldn’t have tried to strike up a conversation with a 29-year-old who was listening to an iPod and reading the in-flight magazine article where Bernie Mac names a bunch of expensive restaurants in Chicago.

Mike Shannon, the Moon Man

There’ll be one final pre-trip post later today, if all goes well, but here’s a quick one for y’all of some Mike Shannon saying I’ve come across lately.

It all started with Shannon’s reaction to Scott Rolen being hit by a pitch with two on the other night. Instantly, Shannon said, “Oh, that’s all right, that’s all right,” glad to have another Cardinals baserunner, regardless of Rolen’s bruises.

Then, online the past two days, I’ve read a couple of perfect Mike Shannon statements. The key to a Shannonism is that, while what he actually says might not make sense directly, its meaning is somehow very clear, despite.

#1: “Scott Rolen’s got hands like sewer lids down there at third.”
#2: “Scott Rolen’s got a 3-0 count. He just needs to make sure not to step on the dog on the porch now.”