Author: The Baseball Zealot

Cubs-Dodgers: Dempster was a little "off" tonight

Game 1 of the NLDS started out exciting enough.  Exciting enough that when Mark DeRosa hit his two-run homer in the second inning, I spilled my full plate of nachos on the floor and I didn’t even care. 

But that was about all the excitement I was going to get all evening it would seem. 

Cubs starter Ryan Dempster was one strike away from pitching 5 shutout innings against the Dodgers tonight.  Maybe in the back of his mind, that’s what Lou Piniella was thinking when he kept him out there.  I’m normally the kind of guy who likes to keep a guy out there when he’s pitching a shutout but even I would have considered some bullpen relief before this point.  TBS broadcaster Ron "Mr Obvious" Darling told us "It looks like it’s not Dempster’s night tonight". 

No, it wasn’t.  Four earned in 4 2/3 innings but also 7 walks.  He was lucky he got away with what he did. 

Kudos to Geovany Soto, by the way.  Yes, he was 0 for 3 behind the plate but he had his work cut out for him behind the plate.  He trapped countless balls in the dirt (and a couple high ones).  With our wild pitching tonight, he did a tremendous job. 

The best thing to do is to forget game 1 and  go on to game 2. 

Off-topic:  I have the utmost respect for Tony Gwynn and for the most part he says things that are reasonably intelligent but am I the only person who thinks he doesn’t have a voice for TV broadcasting? 

Photos of Game 3 of Illini Orange and Blue Series

With the playoff game going on tonight, I had lot going on already but that didn’t stop me from dropping by Illinois Field after work and catching a few innings of today’s game of Orange and Blue Game World Series.  The intra squad series of the University of Illinois baseball team has been going on all week.

I took some photos and posted them.

Baseball Digest Daily covers the Postseason

Eric SanInocencio contacted me to plug his baseball talk show, Baseball Digest Daily.  I took a listen and it’s a good one. 

When it comes to guests, BDD gets some pretty top draws.  The show I listened to billed as the "Playoff Roundtable", featured ESPN’s Buster Olney as well as Chicago Tribune’s Mark Gonzalez and Adam Rubin from the NY Daily News. 

This show (dated 9/27) is an apt show to start with as they preview the postseason.  Give it a listen. 

Link

Cubs, Dodgers: Breaking down the Stats

Dave Pinto does a good job of breaking down the Cubs and Dodgers statistically on Baseball Musings.  Not too many surprises here:

Cubs come out on top offensively in pretty much every category.  They were tops in the league in runs/game, OBA (Dusty who?), slugging and batting. 

On the pitching side of things, it’s a little more competitive.  Dem Bums’ ERA of 3.68 was tops in the NL in ERA though the Cubs weren’t too far behind with a 3.87 ERA which was good for 3rd in the league.  Though the Cubs best the Dodgers (and the rest of the league) in K/9 IP, they don’t do as well in BB/9 IP in comparison. 

The Cubs won the season series record but Pinto points out that the games and stats were close.  Runs, homeruns and walks, were all pretty statistically even. 

Losing brings out the worst in ballplayers

Things are so bad in the Seattle clubhouse there’s talk of player anger toward Ichiro. 

…former manager John McLaren and his staff were forced to act this season after a player was overheard talking about Ichiro and wanting to "knock him out."

Apparently, some players had an issue with Ichiro’s "selfish" style of play.

Dave Cameron from USS Mariner has his take on the issue.

A happy story that involves MLB Advanced Media (really)

Sometimes MLB Advanced Media gets it.  Sometimes they understand what is in their best interests. 

This is one of those times.

Baseball fan Russ Gooberman created a mash-up video of Texas Ranger Josh Hamilton featuring his longest homerun from the All-Star Game Home Run Derby.  He set it to some music and uploaded it to YouTube. 

Gooberman says the very next day, MLB Advanced Media sent a trademark claim to YouTube and the video was taken down.  YouTube sent him a notice that read:

"This is to notify you that we have removed or disabled access to the following material as a result of a third-party notification by MLB Advanced Media claiming that this material is infringing:"

Through YouTube, Gooberman responded to MLB Advanced Media.  His counter-notification was very well written in my opinion.  It says in part (you can read the whole bit at lessig.com):

"Under established Fair Use principles, if a work is considered transformative, it does not represent an infringement. This video in particular, is extremely transformative. First of all, it takes less than a minute of footage out of an over three hour exhibition. Secondly, the footage is edited differently than the original telecast. Thirdly, the entire soundtrack has been removed and replaced. Fourthly, the footage itself has been altered, added to, subtracted from, and has had the meaning changed altogether.

…

This piece is fully non-commercial. The website behind the creation of this piece takes in zero revenue, and is a free entertainment service. Non-commercial use is another standard by which copyrighted material is allowable for re-use.

Again, this is only a small part of what Gooberman wrote and his whole piece is quite eloquent.  Kudos to him for taking the time and effort to make his case. 

As I said, this story does have a happy ending.  In response to his notice and perhaps a second look at the video, not only did MLB Advanced Media rescind their takedown notice, they featured Gooberman’s mashup video on the official MLB Entertainment Blog.

Is MLB starting to see the light about intellectual property?  Are they beginning to realize that posting one minute videos or photographs of MLB baseball does not hurt their bottom line but indeed increases fan interest in the game? 

Probably not.  But it’s a good step in the right direction and I heartily applaud MLBAM for seeing the light in this one case. 

There may be hope yet.

Here’s the video in question.  If you are Josh Hamilton fan, you’ll love it.

Phillie Phanatic Phingered phor Phear-inducing Phranks

Never trust anyone in a green suit.

phillie phanatic

Apparently, there was a bomb scare on Wednesday at Citizens Bank Park forcing an evacuation of fans before the game.

The culprit?  Foil-wrapped hot dogs duct taped together left by the Phillie Phanatic and his crew.  The ballpark dogs were part of a tv commercial featuring the Phillie mascot.  The leftovers were left outside the ballpark and somehow looked like an exploding device to somebody therefore causing the ensuing panic.  The bomb squad was called in and yes, the hot dogs were indeed blown up.