Posts that don’t quite fit into any other categories.
I guess I should call attention to the fact that someone from my hometown (in fact, we’re both alumni of the same high school) was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame this past weekend. The Tampa Tribune was apparently giving Wade Boggs saturation coverage all last week. And his plaque mentions the Devil Rays!
Levi (or Toby): any Carmi connections to the Hall of Fame?
Because I like a good Biblical quote as much as–hell, let’s be honest: more than–the next nonbeliever, I enjoyed seeing The Pinstriped Blog making use of Job a couple of days ago. For those of you whose joy in Yankee misfortune rivals Satan’s joy in Job’s boils, you can instead think of this quote as it applies to yesterday’s Cubs bullpen disaster.
APPROPRIATE BIBLICAL QUOTATION FOR MANAGERS
WHO CALL IN THE WRONG PITCHER FROM THE BULLPEN
“Truly I cannot help myself; I have been deprived of resourcefulness.‖Job, 6:13.
The author also, with thanks to Robert Benchley, gleefully takes Hebrews 8:13 out of context:
“Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.”*
Today I offer a toast to a player whom you’re unlikely ever to have given a second thought to: longtime bench player Mark Sweeney.
Sweeney, a lefty, was born in 1969 in Framingham, Massachusetts, and he attended the University of Maine before being drafted by the California Angels in the 9th round of the 1991 draft. He was traded to the Cardinals in 1995 and made his debut on August 4th of that year against the Cubs, going 1-4 with an RBI groundout in a loss. He remained a Cardinal until midway through 1997, playing outfield and first base, at which point he was traded to the Padres (for, among others, Fernando Valenzuela). Since then, he’s been with the Padres, Mets, and Rockies, with 2005 finding him back in San Diego.
His career batting line is .256/.349/.392, and he’s never even 200 at-bats in a season. For his 11-year career, he’s hit 27 home runs, or five more than Sosa hit in June of 1998. But all in all, a solid major league career, something to be proud of.
And he’s always been a favorite for some reason, a player I keep an eye on every season. Why? I’m not really sure. Part of it’s his batting eye, definitely. Ever since the first time I read Bill James back in 1990 (when he confirmed my suspicion that all those walks Jack Clark used to take were extremely helpful), I’ve liked players with a good eye. I’ve also always had a soft spot for bench players who do one or two things well and seem, by all appearances, to accept their role. And I enjoy rooting for the Lesser Sweeney, forever playing in the shadow of Mike Sweeney, who, though drafted a round after Mark and making his debut a month later, has been a much better hitter (.305/.377/.498) and a four-time All-Star and has made nearly 20 times what Mark Sweeney has made.
But that’s about all the reasons I have. Not a lot, really, but even so, every spring when the Cardinals are stocking their bench, I keep hoping they’ll pick up Mark Sweeney. And each year I hope his team will make the postseason, and he’ll get a chance at a Tito Landrum–Timo Perez-type postseason moment, forever lodging himself in the memories of some team’s fans.
So the next time I raise a glass, it’ll be to Mark Sweeney.
Steve Kline, complaining about a balk call in the Orioles/Yankees game last night:
“Giambi called time. I stepped off the rubber. You could hear the Yankee bench yelling ‘Balk.’ Once you get hit for it once, the umpires look for it. That was a bogus call. I was deliberating whether to put [home plate umpire Foster] in the Cobra Clutch. It was a great game until that happened.”
I don’t think he meant this kind of Cobra Clutch.
thatbob: Wow, the Cobra Clutch, natural arch-enemy of the dreaded Camel Clutch!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_wrestling_finishers
I didn’t realize it, but apparently, yesterday was Throwback Uniform Day throughout the major leagues. I was tipped off by my father, who I called for Father’s Day today; he had gone to see the Devil Rays play the Cardinals Saturday night, and reported that the Cardinals were wearing their 1982 powder blue road uniforms — from back when we as a nation decided gray didn’t look good enough on TV — and the Devil Rays were wearing early 1960s uniforms from the University of Tampa, i.e., Lou Piniella’s old college baseball uniform. Unfortunately, this is the best picture I could find showing the front of the Rays’ uniforms.
Amtrak’s “frequent flyer” program, Guest Rewards, occasionally sends “special offers” to a subset of its members. Hmm, I wonder why they would have picked me to receive this one: “Baseball City Bonus — Enjoy America’s favorite pastime and earn 100 bonus points when you follow your team to any of the following destinations: Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, St. Louis, Kansas City, Arlington, Denver, Milwaukee, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Miami, Atlanta, Minneapolis and Detroit.” Now, Arlington isn’t an Amtrak station (Dallas and Fort Worth are), and the Northeast Corridor stations are missing from this list, as is the Tampa Bay area (Amtrak train station in Tampa, connecting buses stop in St. Petersburg), but perhaps Amtrak doesn’t think the Tampa Bay area should count as having a baseball team. Toronto’s also missing, and it is served by Amtrak, but special rules probably apply because it’s in a foreign country. For that matter, Oakland isn’t listed, but “San Francisco” presumably covers any Amtrak stop in the other Bay Area, and Phoenix isn’t listed, but the Amtrak stop that’s ostensibly for Phoenix is really in Maricopa, Arizona, which is a long, long way away in the middle of the desert somewhere.
Now, it’s not like they’re checking to see if you’re actually following your team, so if I were really desperate to get those 100 bonus points, now that I live in beautiful Van Nuys, I’d book a trip from Van Nuys to Los Angeles ($9.50 each way for regular coach, $18.50 each way for Business Class). But maybe I’ll think about a trip to San Diego for a Sunday afternoon Padres game at some point in the next couple of months.
Fans of large ballplayers should raise a glass to Prince Fielder, who made his debut last night for the Brewers, going 0-4. Like his father, Prince is a large man, though he seems to have the potential to be an even better hitter than his dad. Believe it or not, I think it’s probably a genuinely exciting time to be a Brewers fan, as they seem to be assembling a core of actual baseball prospects.
If only they’d ditched Selig a decade ago!
Levi saw the Cardinals win in New York today. Hope he didn’t get spit on by any Mets fans, although if they hit his grungy old Cardinals cap, who could tell? Ha ha!
Still 4 hours and 55 minutes until the start of tonight’s Dodgers game, for which I will be in attendance.
Normal train service has resumed between New York and Newark.
Hey, Levi, are you enjoying the fact that, so far this baseball season, there’s been so much talk about Cardinals? Why, they’ve been getting a ton of coverage on cable news channels, not just ESPN!
Becky: I can’t wait to see which one is going to the Pope. And will they let him do it from STL, or will the whole team have to relocate to the Vatican?
Pujols for Pope!
levi’s help-mate: silly becky, the new pope will undoubtedly be from the more enlightened world of japan. check out what they are doing with cell phones!
http://www.mobile-weblog.com/archives/live_baseball_for_mobile_phones.html
Becky: I would like it if they showed your strat-o-matic games on your little phone cartoon
Jason: Cardinal Fang! Get…..THE COMFY CHAIR!!!!!!
Cardinal Fang: Yes sir.
Could we possibly ask for a better Opening Night game?
Sunday night, we get the World Champion Boston Red Sox at Yankee Stadium against the World Champion (Choker Division) New York Yankees.
For the second year in a row, Johnny Damon will be our first sight of the baseball season, stepping into the box in all his glory.
And on the mound, we get pure contrast. David Wells v. Randy Johnson. Junkballer v. Flamethrower. One of the roundest guys in baseball v. the tallest, skinniest. They ought to go on the road as a comedy team. They’re listed at Baseball-reference.com as weighing the same, despite the Unit’s six-inch height advantage. Now that’s comedy.
It’s time. Y’all are invited for chili and corn bread.
