Category: Uncategorized

 On Tuesday, the AL Gold Glove winners were announced:

P	Kenny Rogers	Texas Rangers
C	Jason Varitek	Boston Red Sox
1B	Mark Teixeira	Texas Rangers
2B	Orlando Hudson	Toronto Blue Jays
3B	Eric Chavez	Oakland Athletics
SS	Derek Jeter	New York Yankees
OF	Ichiro Suzuki	Seattle Mariners
OF	Torii Hunter	Minnesota Twins
OF	Vernon Wells	Toronto Blue Jays

Tradition has always been a big factor in awarding the Gold Glove awards in the past.  Those who have gotten it in the past tended to have a good chance to get it again.  Not so for the AL recipients this year.  Varitek, Hudson and Teixeira won it for the first time.  Ichiro, Hunter and Chavez all won it for the 5th time. 

I put my thoughts in the comments section.  Feel free to do so as well.

Followup:  David Pinto’s comments in Baseball Musings seem to back up comments made about Jeter/Cabrera.

 

I found an article about Bobby Valentine in a Japanese daily, the Mainichi Daily News.  For those not in the know, Valentine just became the first foreign manager to win the Japanese Series.

The article was entitled  The Dark Side of Baseball’s Brightest Star.  After reading the article, I had to laugh to myself.  While it’s true…

 ”During a game, when one of his players is ruled out in a close call, he has been known to bellow what sounds like ‘F**k!'” the no-nonsense weekly… hears from a sports journalist. “He can be pretty aggressive.”

…but that’s about as bad as it gets.  The rest of the article makes him out to be a model manager and husband.  He “never says a bad word about his players” and is “known as a devoted husband”

Guess the media in Japan isn’t much better than America’s.

Freddy Garcia locked horns with Brandon Backe through seven innings of shutout ball. Perhaps the scoreless tie should have been broken earlier in the game when Joe Crede launched a two out double off the leftfield wall, but Aaron Rowand lost track of the number of outs and stopped at 2nd after losing sight of the ball. The bullpens were brought on in the eighth, finally Houston had found a bridge to Lidge, but the bridge was washed out when the White Sox scored the only run of the game in the top of the 8th. Garcia was lifted for pinch-hitter Willie Harris who lined a single to left, was advanced to second on a bunt by Scott Podsednik, Carl Everett batted for Tadahito Iguchi and grounded him to 3rd. The stage was set for World Series MVP Jermaine Dye to work his magic with an RBI single up the middle.

Bobby Jenks was brought on to close out the Astros & the series in the 9th. Here’s how the 9th went for the Stros. There was a blooper of a single in front of Rowand and then there was a sac bunt. After that was the Juan Uribe Show. Uribe raced into foul territory and dove into the stands, snagging a foul pop. Then Juan got to show off his arm on a slow roller up the middle, Uribe grabbed the ball and fired the batter out on a bang-bang play at 1st.

THE CHICAGO WHITE SOX WON THE WORLD SERIES!!! CLEAN SWEEP!!!

 

Overheard in a forum discussing the baseball postseason:

“ I wouldn’t trust Kruk or Reynolds to pick my laundry detergent.”

Maybe it’s me but I disagree.  I’ve gotten used to Harold Reynolds as a baseball analyst over the years.  As for John Kruk, he’s entertaining and actually surprisingly articulate considering what I would expect.

 

While managing my brother’s little league team to a championship season there was a bump in the road. We were undefeated and playing a far inferior foe. For some reason we came out listless and were getting seriously thumped halfway through the ballgame. I gathered my team together in the dugout and let them in on my plan to tell the umpire we were going to forfeit the game. All my players protested, saying we couldn’t forfeit because we were undefeated. I told my players nobody cared to play tonite and how we were going to lose anyway. Also I said we could all go home & watch TV rather than wasting our time out on the diamond. The team said they would start playing ball. Of course this woke up the squad and we went on to wallop our opponent. The lesson learned was not to just go through the motions.

Teddy Ballgame

An unnamed Cubs official was quoted by the New York Post:

“We’re waiting on Joe Borowski like he’s Rollie Fingers or something. He’s barely a good setup man.”

The more I see of David Eckstein, the more I am impressed by him.  Nobody gets more production out of such a small frame than he does.

According to Thom Brennanman and Co, he is third in the majors in pitches seen per at-bat.  His batting average with RISP is frightfully high.  So is his average with two strikes.

This was very apparent in Thursday’s game of the Hou-StL series.  In the 5th inning down by two and a runner on second, Eckstein was up.  Houston pitcher Roy Oswalt got a quick 1-2 count on Eck.  But Eck worked the count in his favor and finally coaxed a walk out of Oswalt.  With two runners on and Edmonds and Pujols up next, the possibilities could have been fatal for Houston.  As it was, Edmonds struck out to end the inning. 

 

This headline says it all:

 

According to the Houston Chronicle, Shaun Dean has to feel pretty lucky.  He not only caught Lance Berkman’s grand slam in Houston’s clincher over Atlanta on Sunday but also caught the game-winning homer hit by Chris Burke in the 18th inning. 

Dean has planned to give the balls back to Astros and most likely get cash and /or prizes in compensation.

I’m back online after putting in a lot of extra hours at work last week.  So much so that I hardly had enough time to keep up with what was going on in the baseball world.

So I was glad to see that the teams I’m rooting for are winning.  The Cards made easy work of the Padres.  The White Sox took care of the Red Sox.  And while I don’t particularly care for either the ‘Stros or the Braves, I’m happy to see Houston win.  

Now if only the Angels can defeat the Yankees.  At this point, it is 5-2 in the 6th.