Looking at the Game of Baseball from all ends of the Spectrum
I wonder if Yahoo is getting full value for their advertising dollar at AT&T Park? For those non-geeks who don’t get it. Hat tip to John Battelle’s SearchBlog More background on the photo,
I wonder if Yahoo is getting full value for their advertising dollar at AT&T Park?
For those non-geeks who don’t get it.
Hat tip to John Battelle’s SearchBlog
More background on the photo,
Seems Cardinals skipper Tony LaRussa had words with St Louis Post-Dispatch columnist Bernie Miklasz regarding a “poem” he wrote about rival Chicago Cubs. “That cheap shot against the Cubs, I don’t want to be a part of it, and I want them, I want everybody to know that the St. Louis Cardinals and their manager … Continue reading “Poetry is not LaRussa’s thang”
Seems Cardinals skipper Tony LaRussa had words with St Louis Post-Dispatch columnist Bernie Miklasz regarding a “poem” he wrote about rival Chicago Cubs.
“That cheap shot against the Cubs, I don’t want to be a part of it, and I want them, I want everybody to know that the St. Louis Cardinals and their manager have an absolute disregard for that,” La Russa said.
…
“I know it’s the editor [who] makes those decisions,” La Russa said. “But I have a couple of ways [to protest], and the one way I’m going to do it is I’m not going to answer questions from the Post-Dispatch. If you disagree with that, write that you disagree with it. I don’t care. I really don’t. What I care is that I don’t put my stamp, any way shape or form, on the cheap shot like that at a Major League organization.”
LaRussa has his reasons, I’m sure. Maybe he doesn’t this want to inspire the Cubs. Maybe he sincerely doesn’t believe it’s respectful. Whatever.
Or maybe LaRussa was upset because it came out about the day the Cubs passed the Cardinals in the standings. Yes, I know they slipped below them again.
Anyway, I read the offending column. I’m not impressed. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not offended as a Cub fan or anything like that. I just don’t find it that humorous or insightful or whatever it was supposed to be.
Maybe if it rhymed.
Scott Thorman: 4 for 4, HR, 2 runs, 4 rbis
Atlanta firstbaseman is doing his best to see if Brave fans can forget Adam LaRoche. This was his 3rd dinger of the year and he’s hitting .292 (significantly higher than last year’s .234). The word on him is that he has some plate discipline problems but so far so good.
Special mention to a few pitchers who put in some good performances. Jamie Moyer (7 shutout innings), Claudio Vargas (5 shutout innings), John Maine (7 shutout innings with 8 Ks, he’s 4-0 now!) and what’s this? Fausto Carmona? He allowed just one run in 8 1/3 (but just one K).
The University of Illinois hosted the Gophers of Minnesota last weekend. Once again, the Illini won the opener. The rest of the series… eh, not so much. The Gophers took three of the four games. Friday’s starting pitcher Tanner Roark deserves some credit as he is 4-0 in conference play. For the season, Roark is … Continue reading “Gophers confound Illini”
The University of Illinois hosted the Gophers of Minnesota last weekend. Once again, the Illini won the opener. The rest of the series… eh, not so much. The Gophers took three of the four games.
Friday’s starting pitcher Tanner Roark deserves some credit as he is 4-0 in conference play. For the season, Roark is 5-1 in 8 starts.
Unfortunately, I was out of town for the weekend and wasn’t able to attend any of the games. Does this confirm the “Fan as 10th player” theory?
Other than the results, the big story here was the fact that Gopher Mike Mee and our own Lars Davis are 1-2 in the batting race in the Big Ten. Our boys held Mee for just a couple hits for the first couple games but he broke out and hit safely six times in the third and fourth games. For the series, Mee was 8 for 17.
As for Davis, he hit safely in every game but didn’t have breakout game that Mee did. For the series, Davis was 5 for 16.
At this point, Mee (.445) leads Davis (.439) by a slim .006 margin.
For those looking for some hometown action, catch the Illini on Wednesday against Greenville. It’s a makeup game. If you don’t you’ll need to wait till May 11th for your next home game.
I think all our shows are good but this one is pretty awesome.
Mark Pankin from Retrosheet.org is our guest and he gives us an inside look at what the website is all about. By the way, if you’re a baseball fan and you haven’t been to Retrosheet, you really should check it out.
It was a very fun interview. Mark talked about the process of compiling boxscores and play-by-play accounts of baseball games. We also hit on some of the strange and unusual (and quite honestly funny) tidbits on the site.
But what I came away from this interview was the philosophy behind the organization and thought that went into it. It was clear that they had the baseball fan in mind when they came up with it.
Thanks to Mark for giving up some time to be on the show and thanks to everyone at Retrosheet for all the work they do.
Thanks also to co-host Chuck for suggesting that we bring someone from Retrosheet onto the show. Great idea!
You can download the show at the Baseball Zealot Radio website or listen via iTunes.
Enjoy!!
Jarrod Washburn: 9 IP, 3 H, 0 R, ER, 2 BB, 2 K (Win)
In some ways, this was a very typical Washburn outing. Not many walks but not many strikeouts either. It was the quickest game for the A’s since ’79.
At the same time, Washburn completed the game, something he hasn’t done in two years. His opponent, Joe Blanton, also pitched a CG, allowing only a two-run homer. Seattle won 2-0.
Special mention goes to Philadelphia’s Chase Utley who went 5 for 5.
Brando led us through our first roto draft. Love your Zealot shirt! I participated in my first conventional roto league draft last Sunday. Care to guess who commanded the highest bid? None other than Jose Reyes at $57. I was the second highest bidder before I dropped out. Reyes doesn’t surprise me though. I consider … Continue reading “Reyes is tops”
Brando led us through our first roto draft. Love your Zealot shirt!
I participated in my first conventional roto league draft last Sunday. Care to guess who commanded the highest bid?
None other than Jose Reyes at $57. I was the second highest bidder before I dropped out. Reyes doesn’t surprise me though. I consider him a high value player with all the tools.
Here are the top five players who went and their dollar values.
| Jose Reyes | nym | 57 | |
| Alex Rodriguez | nyy | 53 | |
| Albert Pujols | stl | 49 | |
| Johan Santana | min | 48 | |
| Derek Jeter | nyy | 45 |
I ended up with Santana. As a matter of fact, I probably overpaid for pitching, devoting 47% of my payroll to pitching (league average 29%). But dang, when Rich Hill came up, I couldn’t resist.
For those using Mosiac, MLB.TV says they have a new build available as of last week. Changes and fixes included in this build include: – Swarmcast updates/bugfixes for better high quality streaming – Addition of Swarmcast version for troubleshooting – Video updates to mosaic client/install to detect incompatible hardware – Mac stability/bugfixes – CPU usage … Continue reading “New Build available for Mosaic”
For those using Mosiac, MLB.TV says they have a new build available as of last week. Changes and fixes included in this build include:
– Swarmcast updates/bugfixes for better high quality streaming
– Addition of Swarmcast version for troubleshooting
– Video updates to mosaic client/install to detect incompatible hardware
– Mac stability/bugfixes
– CPU usage is now better on the Mac
– Additional on-demand playback updates
Good news for Mac users, I would think.
Ok, where was everyone last night?? Official attendance was only 669 at Illinois Field to see the University of Illinois defeat the Eastern Illinois Panthers 8-0.
Ben Reeser gave the Illini 4 lights-out innings
The Illinois got some fantastic pitching from starter Ben Reeser (4 IP, 3 H) as well as relievers Scott Shaw (4 IP, 1 H) and Jake Toohey (1 IP, 0 H). No Illini pitcher allowed a walk.
Ryan Snowden scores a run during Illinois’ 5-run rally in the 6th inning
Panther pitcher Alex Guttosch looked pretty good until the 6th inning when Illinois put together a 5-run rally. For the game, six players had multiple hit games including Kyle Hudson who went 3 for 3 with a run, an rbi.
Illinois’ defense was on top of things, too. The first two innings, Eastern got a man on but both were quickly erased by a 6-4-3. As a matter of fact, despite four hits by Eastern, Illinois pitchers faced only one hitter over the minimum over the course of the game.
The win gives Illinois an overall winning record (18-17, 7-7 conference). Tonight they play Blackburn College. I had a friend stay with me a few days ago who grew up near Blackburn. He says it has (had?) an enrollment of around 800 so I don’t expect much of a battle. Then again, I felt the same thing about Robert Morris and they gave quite a fight.
I took some photos at the game against Eastern. You can see them at The Baseball Zealot’s Photo Gallery.
Update: University of Illinois defeated Blackburn Wednesday night by the score of 9-3. They got five good innings out of freshman pitcher Kevin Manson and Lars Davis continues his season long tear going 3 for 5.
Illinois had a tough weekend. Despite winning the series opener on Friday, the Illini lost the remaining three games of the series against the Hawkeyes. That’s not to say that the Illini didn’t score runs. Sunday’s game score was 17-12 and the Illini actually had the lead up until the fifth inning. Illinois pitchers did … Continue reading “Illini Drop 3 of 4 Against the Hawkeyes”
Illinois had a tough weekend.
Despite winning the series opener on Friday, the Illini lost the remaining three games of the series against the Hawkeyes. That’s not to say that the Illini didn’t score runs. Sunday’s game score was 17-12 and the Illini actually had the lead up until the fifth inning.
Illinois pitchers did suffer during the weekend. After another solid performance by Tanner Roark Friday (1 run in 7 innings), the staff gave up 10, 10, and 17 runs respectively for the series.
The weekend puts Illinois dead even for the year, 17-17 overall and 7-7 conference.
Coming up: Illinois has six home games in a row. Tuesday (Eastern Illinois) and Wednesday (Blackburn) are non-conference games and Minnesota comes into town for the weekend.