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Umpire Fantasy League

Here’s the most unique idea for a fantasy league I’ve heard in a while. One based on MLB umpire ejections.

Billed as the MLB Umpire Ejection Fantasy League, this site documents all ejections by umpires in the majors and allows members to draft umps as you would a fantasy baseball team. But as the name suggests, the stats are based on how many ejections the umpires are part of.

Even if you aren’t a member, the blog is well worth the read if only for the useful/trivial? documentation of all the ejections that occur in baseball.

Twins hang on to Mauer for $184 mil

Mike Bauman, columnist for MLB.com, explains why the $184 million deal that keeps Joe Mauer in Minnesota for the next eight years, is good for baseball.

This is where the encouragement occurs for the rest of the non-Yankees in the baseball universe. Instead of Mauer moving to the Bronx to take over for Jorge Posada, for instance, he will simply remain in the upper Midwest as a member of the Minnesota Twins. What a nice, clean, refreshing story line.

and further…

There should be encouragement in this example for other franchises of less than gargantuan size, with star players coming into their own free agency. The best players can be retained by someone other than the biggest franchises.

The figure of $184 seems like a high number but for the number of years and the quality of the product, some feel that the Twins got a pretty good deal. I’ve even heard the word “bargain” bandied about.

Put simply, what this does is lock up one of the best players in baseball who was lucky enough (from the Twins’ perspective) to develop within their system. The Twins are saying goodbye to the Humpdome and hello to Target Field which in the long run will probably help pay for Mr Mauer.

Back to Mike Bauman’s point, though. Is this good for baseball? I guess it doesn’t matter since well, it’s already happened right? But part of me understands Bauman’s point. It’s nice to see the small guys hold on to the big players once in a while.

NOT the Reason I use Twitter

Fox Sports, DirecTV practice with 3D in anticipation of All-Star Game

On Wednesday, Fox Sports and DirecTV in cooperation with Major League Baseball did a dress rehearsal of sorts of shooting a baseball game in 3D. It took place in Angels Stadium and they used college players to help in their effort to create a baseball game atmosphere.

The reason for the practice run? Fox Sports plans to use this 3D technology at this year’s All-Star Game.

Let’s get this out of the way. Only DirecTV subscribers will be able to view the Game in 3D. Should every work as planned though, it will be a coup for DirecTV since many might subscribe just to see the 3D experience.

With all the disclaimers, it still is quite a feat,

As part of July’s coverage, Fox will deploy two sets of announcers, one for the conventional 2D broadcast that most viewers will see and one for DirecTV’s 3D coverage. I asked Goren if the announcers doing 3D will require special training in the new technology. "It’s an interesting question," he says. During game action the announcers focus is on the field of play. But during replays, "do the announcers put on 3D glasses to look at the 3D monitors? Right now we don’t have an answer for that."

During the Consumer Electronics Show back in January, the big buzzword was “3D”. Every provider, manufacturer, and supplier that could conceivably get away with it, would incorporate “3D” into their selling points. It’s clear the 3D is the up and coming technology.

Yet, I’m still trying to get a handle on it. Not intellectually so much but is viewing a baseball in 3D something that really appeals to me. Now these words will most likely come back to bite me in the future. In a couple years, everything we view will be in three dimensions (“dude, you still watch that flat thing?”). But right now, the baseball traditionalist wants to watch a game like I always have (especially without Tim McCarver).

But as someone who is in the technology field, I admit I am curious. Will it be gimmicky like Fox Sports’ Diamond Cam or provide a genuinely pleasurable viewing experience? I guess we’ll see.

MLB panel to announce proposed changes April 4

A panel has been taking a hard look at the current way the game of Major League Baseball is being played. And before you know it, April 4 to be exact, there will be an announcement if there will be any proposed changes. If I know the MLB, there will be some. They can’t leave well enough alone.

Bud Selig is at the forefront of this effort.

Here’s a quick look at some of the big issues the panel hopes to address:

Eliminating the All-Star-World Series home advantage
Adding instant replay for balls hit down the foul lines
Changing the playoff schedule
A variety of “pace of game” issues

The pace of game issue has been a thorn in MLB’s side for a while. Jonathan Papelbon was fined $5000 last year for taking too long on the mound. Now it’s come to light that three teams, the Yankees, Dodgers and the Red Sox have been particularly named by this panel as violating the pace of game. According to Stats LLC, all three teams average over three hours.

As for the playoff schedule, I know many fans that would back the panel on a change on this one. The early proposed change is to eliminate current days of rest to shorten the overall postseason.

There are a few other issues being discussed. Those include changes to the amateur draft and realignment to “better group teams of similar economic situations”. I’m not sure exactly what that means and I’m not sure I want to know.

Now most of these rule or policy changes should they see the light of day, won’t take effect right away. We wouldn’t see the changes to the postseason, for example, till the 2011 season. As for the game play changes, they might take effect sooner. Changes to hasten the pace of baseball games, for example, would probably take effect ASAP. MLB feels they are under the gun by fans to speed the games up.

And if you’re interested in how *I* feel about the above proposed changes:

Yes, let’s just pretend it never happened. Despite how it was trumped up by MLB and media, the home advantage rule had limited effectiveness.
No, though I’m not surprised it’s being proposed. Proponents of the original instant replay rule claimed over and over that “it will only be used for home run calls”. I knew it would be a slippery slope.
Yes. The postseason schedule takes too long and the cynic in me wonders if it’s to prolong how long money can be made from it.
It depends. I don’t like long games either but I also don’t like changing how players play the game. I wonder what MLB would have done about Al “The Mad Hungarian” Hrabosky, had he played in these times.

Your thoughts?

MJ at bat

Here’s a neat picture of basketball legend Michael Jordan as a 13 year old kid swinging a baseball bat.

Hat tip to Andy Gray at #si_vault.

Ugliest uniforms, really??

Life.com presents us with a slideshow of “Baseball’s Ugliest Uniforms. Ever.”

I respectfully disagree on some of them. Many include uniforms from the 1970s. Those unis were bright, colorful and some would even say gaudy. They reflected the times when people sought to differentiate themselves and saw no shame in it.

Later, the late 90s and the 00s brought us the era of conformity and corporate standardization in term of uniforms. Even the smallest change brings the loudest call of condemnation. The other symptom of recent times is the constant change in uniforms or excuses to bring out a new line uniforms presumably to increase the bottom line for MLB.

So yes, getting back to my original point, I do like the older 70s uniforms. They may be gaudy from today’s perspective but they hearken back to a day when I grew up with the game.

Besides, if you want to talk about ugly baseball uniforms, I’m surprised Life.com didn’t have THESE on their list:

Sorry Sox fans but those WERE ugly.

Beginner’s Guide to Following Chicago Baseball on Twitter

If you use Twitter, I assume you are on for on two reasons. To glean information and perhaps to give your own analysis/info on what you know.

If you are a Chicago Cubs or Chicago White Sox fan and on you are Twitter, there are some must-follow feeds to get the most out of the social networking tool. This is a general guide that will help you get started.

Let’s start with the basics.

The Teams

Here are the official twitter accounts for the two major league teams. Follow these if you want the latest news from the Cubs and Sox. Keep in mind that anything from here will most likely be links you will see on mlb.com or press releases. Certainly nothing too juicy.

Chicago Cubs @cubs

White Sox @whitesox

Search Hashtags

Since you all can can read the articles on mlb.com on your own, perhaps of more interest to Chicago baseball fans is search hashtags. This will allow you to follow all tweets from baseball fans having to do with say, the Cubs. Without going into a whole tutorial on Twitter (you can find a good one on hashtags here), suffice to say that any tweet with the “#” sign before the search term before it will be included in the search query and folks will see it when they follow that query.

So the ones that we’re interested in are:

Chicago Cubs #cubs

Chicago White Sox #whitesox

Keep in mind that Twitter programs (like Tweetdeck, Tweetie or Twitterific) take advantage of hashtags much better than the web version of Twitter.

MLB on Twitter

Let me throw out the general Major League Baseball Twitter links out there while I’m on the topic.

MLB on Twitter @mlb.

To follow the Major League Baseball hashtag, it’s #mlb

Other Chicago Baseball people to follow

Cubs fans will want to follow MLB Cubs beat writer Carrie Muskat (@carriemuskat). Similarly, Scott Merkin (@scottmerkin) who covers the Sox for mlb.com is must for White Sox fans.

For the Cubs fans, here a few more.

Iowa Cubs @Iowa Cubs

Official Cubs Vine Line @vinelinetwitter (not too active yet)

Len Kasper and Bob Brenly’s Official Twitter @lenandbob

For the White Sox:

Charlotte Knights @KnightsBaseball

Sun Times Sox blog @CST_sox

I was thinking of throwing up some baseball blog twitter links for both teams but so there are so many I wouldn’t be doing justice to some good ones out there. Just know that most all of them out there have a twitter presence and it’s easy to follow them. Not only is it an easy way to get notified when they update their website but more importantly, you get some good insights from the bloggers in 140 characters or less.

Also, there aren’t too many active Chicago players on Twitter right now (no, the Carlos Zambrano you see is a fake). Former White Sox OF/1B Nick Swisher (@NickSwisher) has an account is quite active (and interesting). Fantasy Baseball Dugout blog has a list of current MLB players on Twitter. Keep in mind not all players with accounts are active or even post themselves.

I’ll throw one more in here for kicks just because it’s been in the news lately. Ozzie Guillen is on the Twitter thing now. And so far, he been having fun with it. So has the Twitter community because his Tweets have been quite nonsensical at times. I’ve said it before… I’m not a Sox fan but I kind of like Ozzie Guillen because I think he makes MLB a little uncomfortable. This Twitter venture on his part is just one more example. You can find Ozzie on Twitter @ozzieguillen.

I hope this help those of you baseball fans who are just starting to use Twitter. If you have other relevant Chicago baseball people to follow on Twitter, please let me know.

Fun with Minor League names

Bus Leagues Baseball compiles a list of the best names in minor league baseball

I just noticed Seth Schwindenhammer was on the list. Red Sox farmhand Schwindenhammer was drafted by the Illini. I remember his name because when I wrote about him, it was just plain easier to copy and paste his name than to type it out.

Let’s just pack it up now, cuz it won’t get any better for the Cubs

The Cubs won today. And you know winning the first game of spring training means everything in the world, right?

But the Cubs did get the right hits from the right people. Fuld, (homerun), newly acquired Marlon Byrd (2 for 2, homerun), Tyler Colvin (2 doubles, homerun), Derrek Lee (homerun, yawn), and Starlin Castro, who seems to be everyone’s freakin’ darlin’, (triple).

I kid, I love the guy. Castro came in relief for Ryan Theriot and his triple seemed to say, “Find a another position, Cajun dude!” Which just might happen. The baseball pundit hordes are calling for Theriot to move to second base and it’s probably on Cubs management’s mind, too.

But first and foremost on Cubs manager Lou Piniella’s mind, is how to spell Kosuke Fukudome’s nickname. From Cubs beat writer Carrie Muskat, Lou says it’s “Fuke”. I guess that “e” keep us Cub fans morally clean. Perhaps they should issue a press release.

The press (mlb.com and the Cubs in particular) have been making a big deal about Alfonso Soriano and how gosh darn healthy he is.

I don’t know about you but that kind of talk scares the beejeezus out of me. One, you don’t talk about it unless there is something to be worry about and two, why are they tempting fate? Almost like talking during a pitcher’s no-hitter. “Well, Ron, Soriano’s gone through the season so far a not a hint of a hamstring pull.” “We’ve been pretty lucky. He’s sure to go through the whole season without a visit to the DL.”

Then BAM!

Let’s just keep it quiet and count our blessings. And win another… even if it is just spring training.