Alright then.As I watched Price, I thought: This guy is the Obama of baseball. He's young, gamine, in a light-skinned black man (might even be bi-racial), "inexperienced," but cool as an ice cube under pressure.
Then lo and behold, what happened yesterday? Obama had an event in Tampa where he was introduced by...David Price! Life's always interesting.
Over the past 33 seasons the Braves have annually changed faces and maintained the same familiar sound provided by Pete Van Wieren and Skip Caray.No, neither Pete nor Skip were Ernie Harwell, Red Barber, or Charlie Kalas. But they meant everything to lifelong Braves' fans and those of us who clung to them when circumstances cast us out into the vast unaffiliated expanses that only Ted Turner saw fit to serve with precious baseball.
Sadly their days as the most recognizable broadcast duo in Braves history came to a close with Caray's passing in August. Saying goodbye to his close friend while continuing to perform the craft they shared together over the course of four decades was one of the toughest things Van Wieren ever experienced during his remarkable career.
Saying goodbye to two of his greatest passions -- the Braves and the game of baseball -- will also prove difficult at times. But with good health, Van Wieren has decided its time to step away from the microphone and spend more time with his family.
Know what's cool? Some kid is going to one day be saying that his first baseball memory was Cole Hamels pitching to B.J. Upton.The World Series has come to funky old St. Pete.
This is, quite frankly, an astonishing development for any baseball fan who remembers St. Pete as a haven on the flyway north, where elderly snowbirds congregated and young players ran around in rubber suits, sweating off the winter, and then they all migrated north when the weather was tolerable . . .
. . . The first time I saw St. Pete was in March 1961, on spring break with my wife. We drove straight through the night, arriving on a Sunday morning, and, oaf that I am, I sought out Al Lang Field. From my car, I spotted a couple of guys strolling down the sidewalk, each carrying a bat in his hand — Stan Musial and Red Schoendienst, to be precise. As I recall it, they were in uniform, about to take a bus ride to Tampa or Sarasota, but my wife says, no, they were wearing collared sport shirts. Maybe they had just come from church. At any rate, just spotting Stan and Red, I was in young-sportswriter heaven.
First of all, you start with the basics: simply because an individual has been arrested doesn’t mean he has a problem with alcohol, But when someone is caught in a situation like this, the odds are he had been driving under the influence seven times — that’s the national average. He needs to be told, "You’re lucky you didn’t kill or hurt anyone,” And it would be good for the boy to get himself into some program right away, voluntarily. He’s got time on his hands. He would have that to show when he goes in front of the judge and he just might find out something about himself that he didn’t know.And Sam McDowell knows, because for as fast as he could throw that speedball by you, he lost everything he ever had to alcoholism. As Sam says, that doesn't mean Joba has a problem -- people can have bad days -- but if I were a young buck like Joba Chamberlain, I'd do everything I could to protect the precious gift of talent that I was given
. . . largely through necessity, the 1930s was the decade when sport became both mass entertainment and recreation in the United States, Europe and the British Empire . . .And by specializing in gymnastics with such a fierce determination, the Germans pulled themselves out of the Depression and into the late 1930s and 40s with just the kind of can-do moxy a fella can be proud of!
. . . Roosevelt's New Deal helped to spread sport throughout the community. Organized games and sports were encouraged with gymnasiums, swimming pools, tennis courts and golf courses built as well as dams, bridges, highways and public buildings. Government and private enterprise combined in 1932 to build the Cleveland Municipal Stadium. Its 80,000 capacity was easily the biggest in the United States . . . Sport was an inexpensive hobby and soccer, swimming, athletics, boating and camping became popular. The Nordic countries practiced winter sports, the French cycled and the Germans specialized in gymnastics.
Hello, Tampa! And congratulations to your Rays!He didn't go any further. I suppose he thought that it would have hurt his Captain Cool persona a bit by adding " . . . those lucky-ass Rays who, if Ozzie Guillen had the roster he had wanted would have still been dizzy from the beatdown from my White Sox that they so richly deserved!!!! BOOOYAHHHH!!!"
"I have said from the beginning that I'm a unity candidate, bringing people together. So when you see a White Sox fan showing some love for the Rays and the Rays showing some love back, you know we're onto something here."I see through you Barack . . . I see through you . . .
Turns out Jose Canseco, who zealously hyped his book Juiced, now says that book about steroids in baseball was his "biggest mistake." Canseco, charged last week with a misdemeanor after U.S. immigration officials said he returned from Mexico with a drug that is illegal without a prescription, says in Monday night's A&E Network's The Last Shot special that he shouldn't have written the book and "regrets mentioning players (as steroid users). I never realized this was going to blow up and hurt so many people."As Hiestand says: "[D]oesn't seem that hard to have predicted." My guess is that Jose would be less regretful if his quickie sequel had sold as much as Juiced did.
"Most boring World Series evar/and I don't even like baseball"
No, it has nothing to do with the polls. It has everything to do with character, however:Barack Obama is on his way to enemy territory this morning by his own admission. He is going to Tampa. What does Obama have against Tampa, you ask? Well, with the Tampa Bay Rays on their way to their first World Series in franchise history, Obama has declared his support for the opposition. Last weekend in Philadelphia, Obama told a crowd, "I am a White Sox fan," he said, "but since the White Sox are out of it, I'll root for the Phillies now." So Obama is rooting "for" the Phillies, which means, if he maintains any modicum of consistency, "against" the Rays, a team filled with young, hopeful, no-name players. Did Obama root for the Empire in "Star Wars?"I've long been on record as being against politicians pandering to baseball fans. We're smarter than that folks! We see what you're doing! But even worse than a straight pander -- which Obama's statements about the Phillies clearly were -- would be committing a flip-flop pander by going rah-rah on the Rays.
Rays 3, Red Sox 1: Whew. Why Matt Garza (7 IP, 2 H 1 ER, 9K) has been letting Shields and Kazmir get away with being called the aces of this staff is beyond me. And I've said it before, but after all of the trouble in the regular season, it's great to see Rocco Baldelli playing a key role in the postseason, especailly getting what turned out to be the hit that put the Rays in the World Series.The U.S. stock market is so rough that even Major League Baseball players are scared — and stockpiling government-guaranteed bonds.There's also some background about how these guys got into advising ballplayers in the first place:
Frank Beck manages money for professional baseball players and other heavy hitters as chief investment manager at Capital Financial Group and affiliate Pro-Player Investing in Austin, Texas. During the summer, Mr. Beck reduced stock weightings for his sports clients to about 25%, positioning about 50% in cash, with 6% in gold bullion and the remainder in bonds. Recently, he started buying his clients agency mortgage bonds, the securities sold by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that are now guaranteed by the government . . .
. . . Of course, sports guys are often risk-takers, and some clients are tempted by the high yields on the very mortgage-backed securities that capsized Bear Stearns Cos. and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. For the most part, Mr. Beck and junior partner
Justin Simmons direct these clients to agency mortgage bonds because of the explicit government guarantees. Those agency bonds can yield as much as 7% to 7.5%, Mr. Beck said.
In 2006, Mr. Beck befriended Mr. Simmons, who pitched the winning game for the University of Texas in the 2002 College World Series before joining the Los Angeles Dodgers system. Mr. Beck and Mr. Simmons, who has a degree in finance, got to talking about the niche for managing the money of sports pros.Based on this page, Simmons' teammates on the UT team who made the majors included Huston Street, Omar Quintanilla, and Curtis Thigpen. I suppose we should assume that they are entrusting their massive investment portfolios to him.
“I always believed the niche was there; how to approach it was the tough part,” said Beck, an avid sports fan. “As we got to know each other and talk more about it, we decided it was something that would make our jobs enjoyable.”
In May 2006, Simmons joined the firm, tapping his contacts in the game to launch Pro-Player Investing. Out of $1.1 billion in assets under management at Capital Financial Group, about $150 million is in pro-player accounts. Beck said they were particularly strong in baseball.
I enjoy good sports writing. Like anyone, I enjoy Gary Smith, Frank DeFord, and Peter Gammons. Bill James or Rob Neyer could write books about the 100 all-time best coffee pots and I'd probably pre-order it on Amazon, at least if Posnanski hasn't written that one up as an aside on his blog already. Be it baseball, boxing, or curling, a good writer can make any sports story sizzle or, at the very least, make you think, so I'll always seek it out.DENNIS ECKERSLEY:Mike Davis was a .200 hitter. I have no idea why I walked him. I gave him way too much credit. I glanced over at the on-deck circle, but I'm not really paying attention because I'm pissed I walked Davis. Then the crowd starts to rise and I look back over, and there's Gibson . . .These aren't necessarily new insights -- I've heard Gibson mention the Didier scouting report a bunch of times in the past, and I'm sure Eck has talked about Mike Davis before -- but the presentation is new and refreshing. Just two guys talking about it. No background music. No narration. No Jack Buck "I don't believe what I just saw!" Not that those are bad things -- Jack's call was sublime -- they're just a bit distracting when you're interested in going beyond the newsreel nature of the moment.
KIRK GIBSON: It goes 3-2, and there's a report from Mel Didier, one of our scouts. Didier's been associated with baseball for about 50 years. He says to me, "Partner, as sure as I'm standing here breathing, Eckersley throws a backdoor slider on 3-2." Now, there are people who claim Eckersley almost never went to a 3-2 count. He might have gone to one three or four times that season, but Mel had the book on it.
I stepped out of the batter's box and I said to myself, looking at Eckersley, "As sure as I'm standing here breathing, you're gonna throw a backdoor slider." Then I stepped back in.
The Rays lost a devastating game Thursday night, 8-7. They didn't lose anything else. They did not lose momentum, they did not lose their confidence, and they did not lose their grip on the ALCS. Saturday night, Sunday at the latest, they will close out this thing. Just you watch . . .
. . . Remember that early series in Boston, when both Carl Crawford and Carlos Pena were injured as the Sox swept easily? At the time, it felt like the big kids were getting out of school. Turns out, it was no more of a problem than a missed freeway exit. Remember that seven-game losing streak just before the All-Star game? That felt like the party was over, too. Looking back, it was just like a brownout in an electrical storm. Nothing to worry about.Remember the mid September showdown, when first place was there for the taking? Boston won the first game of the series to pull into a virtual tie for the AL East, and you could hear talk that the Rays might have to settle for the wild-card, after all. Then the Rays won the next two games and ended up winning the AL East. All season, it has been that way. Tampa Bay keeps removing doubts. Such is their personality. They are such a loose bunch that, at times, you wonder if they are aware of the stakes for which they are playing. They have the gift of amnesia.
From what I've seen he has a point. There were at least three times during the season when I wrote off the Rays, figuring that the time had finally come for their inevitable collapse. A couple of those times came after losses to the Red Sox who, then as now, were running upon them from behind. The Rays didn't crumble then. Maybe that's because they didn't know any better. Maybe that's because the whole notion that momentum exists one way or the other is hogwash in the first place.
If I were a Rays' fan, I'd feel pretty sick this morning. But I wouldn't fell worried. There are at least two games left, both of them in St. Pete, both of them with pitching matchups which should favor the Rays. I like their chances to win one of those games.
Red Sox 8, Rays 7: Wow. This quote from Francona pretty much sums it up: "The first six innings we did nothing. They had their way with us every way possible. And then this place came unglued, and we've seen that before." Let's see, silver lining for the Rays . . . silver lining for the Rays . . . well, the whole Scott Kazmir experiment kinda worked, right? At least for a while?
