The Two Week Tour

~ latskojerry ~ 3 Comments

Spring, as always, brought us baseball but the wide geographical span over which major league baseball gets played assures that, while it may be Spring on the calendar, it most definitely has variations across North America. Is it still called North America? Or has the acting president and his circle of varlets changed it to North Par-a-Sago? So while the fortunately located San Diego Padres can draw 40,000 plus for a weekday home game in April, we have the Pittsburgh Pirates and Miami Marlins entertaining 7-8,ooo customers. I guess Miami can’t blame cold weather so much.

The Pirates are further hampered by their unwillingness to compete for capable players on their roster. They have the very talented Paul Skenes and Oneil Cruz and Ke’Bryan Hayes and Brian Reynolds but beyond that? I mean, Tommy Pham–are you serious?

Other questions abound, like is Max Muncy having trouble at the plate because he’s playing for two teams at once? Think of the air travel alone! No, I’m kidding, there really are two Max Muncys. The one who plays for the Dodgers is batting .167 and the rookie playing for Sacrovegas is batting .185. Also, Kyle Tucker looks good as a Cub but Justin Turner? He enjoyed Fenway Park at age 38 but he’s 40 now and it appears that his offensive ship has sailed.

More questions: Will Ronald Acuna Jr. return to the faltering Atlanta Braves before Sean Murphy gets hurt again? Can you name three Tampa Bay Rays players without looking it up? When watching games on MLB TV, do you bet on the mascot races?

We all know that April and October are not good months for hitters, particularly in places like Milwaukee, Chicago, and Minnesota. Minnesota Spring is June and July; there is no Summer, everything else is Winter. The warmer days are coming and the players won’t look like snow boarders out there forever. In the meantime, everybody except Colorado and the White Sox is still in contention. That’s the definition of fun.

Baseball Saves the Day

~ latskojerry ~ 1 Comment

Opening Day did not creep up and surprise me. Yet I did not await it with the same mixture of impatience and angst as usual. But here it was and, when it was here, there I was, mesmerized and rejuvenated. Something happened,right away, right off the bat. A catcher batting leadoff for the Yankees, last year’s second place team, hit a home run in his first at bat. That was the first such situated home run ever recorded in major league baseball history. His team subsequently defeated the Milwaukee Brewers, 4-2. Austin Wells is his name.

A highly touted second year outfielder named Jackson Chourio batted leadoff for the Brewers and struck out in each of his five plate appearances. The heart was warmed when Wilmer Flores of the San Francisco Giants drilled a late inning three run homer to enable the Giants to escape with a 6-4 win over the Cincinnati Reds in the Queen City . Flores was severely hobbled last season by a knee injury but he is the kind of guy who would go have a talk with your neighbor who was threatening you with harm and probably talk him out of it.

The Dodgers won and Shohei Ohtani hit a home run. Also, the sun rose in the east. Baltimore clobbered Toronto. The Pittsburgh Pirates’ defense let them down. Maybe Oneill Cruz is a first baseman. The Sacrovegas A’s lost late in Seattle. Luis Severino and Logan Gilbert were great.

It’s for real now. Here comes the sun.

Rants of the Codger

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I’m many miles away from qualifying as a major league baseball scout but some things are clear even to a fool like me. We fell far too much in love with 100 miles per hour pitch speeds. I’m not impressed in a kindly way with fireworks. I think that what MLB pitchers should be good at is getting batters out.

The San Francisco Giants have a man named Camilo Doval who throws very fast fastballs and even better sliders. They have used him as a “closer”, admittedly a term that has annoyed me ever since I sold cars for a living. Doval lost his closer job last summer and now the team honchos are saying that it was because he walked too many batters ( 5+ every 9 innings). Sorry, but that, as bad as it was, is not the whole story. A relief pitcher who is assigned the task of holding leads late in the game does not want to walk the first batter he faces. That’s trouble. But Doval has another problem. He is, as they say, deliberate. He does not hold base runners well at all. Consequently, a lead off walk is often equivocal to a lead off double. He also tends to lose track of the pitch clock and you could make yourself a Dagwood type sandwich and consume most of it while he hurls a half inning. Umpires are not supposed to do it but they frequently become skeptical of a hurler’s ability to throw strikes when these things are happening. So now you have a runner on second and you need to make better pitches.. Better pitches sometimes leave the yard. We lost, but we saw 6-8 pitches that  traveled over 100 mph.

Now we are also in love with bat speed. Home run swings on every pitch still seem to be acceptable long past the steroid era. Sacrifice bunts and squeeze plays appear to be coming somewhat back into favor, but only during the “cold” months. Starting pitchers don’t hurl more than 5 innings in MLB because they have never previously been asked to do that and they consequently lack the strength or “know how” required. That issue, which costs teams a bundle by forcing them to carry two or three more pitchers to compensate, will take a long time to overcome if it ever is attempted. But I’m just a fan. Can’t wait for it to get started again, though.

 

Back to the Fifties?

~ latskojerry ~ 2 Comments

February has traditionally been the time of year when the winter thaw begins to hint that it might be starting. Let’s not start playing catch yet, but in a couple of weeks the pitchers and catchers will start showing up in the warmer portions of the country where “spring training” takes place. Sports pages and other media outlets begin to pry themselves away from football obsessions (hoping here that it includes Taylor Swift) and allow what used to be called the “National Pastime” some space. The mood has generally been warm, even optimistic. This year it seems a bit different. The great game is looking a bit shoddy and decadent.

The World Champion Los Angeles Dodgers, despite having a horrific bolt of reality dealt to the community in which they operate by the stupendous loss of people, living space,wildlife, and morale, apparently decided to keep on spending money like everything was going to be okay. Kirby Yates, Roki Sasaki, everybody, come on down. Sign up. The sun will still shine behind all the smoke there in fantasy land and we’ve got a great television contract. We survivors are all still rich, right? I’m not sure that that is what is meant by resilience.The Oakland A’s are gone to a minor league yard but who needs Oakland, right? It’s just working class people without the glitter of Las Vegas and the glitter of gambling (now a proud partner of Major League Baseball) or the glitter of over rated show business has beens.You may or may not agree with me that there is no place in organized baseball for glitter. Sacramento will be the so called temporary home for the A’s as they share a field there with the Triple A team that the San Francisco Giants are affiliated with, the River Cats. Sacramento deserves better than the ignorant slobs running that franchise.

Rob Cumberworld Manfred is the perfect commissioner in the Trump II era who doesn’t have a clue what the product he’s selling is all about. Just take their money and feed them bullcrap. Honor the billionaires and laugh at the peasants.

Eventually the athletes will help us to feel better. That’s what I’m hoping. I’m glad that Juan Soto is a New York Met, not a Yankee. I’m glad Justin Verlander is still going to work. Here’s hoping, but it looks like 1954.

The New York Yankees string of five consecutive pennants was broken that year by a remarkable Cleveland team that won 111 games against 43 losses but the Yanks won 103 . The big weapon the Yankees had, and still have, was cash. Cleveland was greatly aided that year by their “acqusition” of slugger Vic Wertz from the Baltimore Orioles, formerly the sad sack St. Louis Browns. Baltimore finished seventh in the eight team American League that year by losing 100 games. They were outdone in losing by the Philadelphia A’s, who were 51-103. Fourth place Boston finished 44 games behind Cleveland. Third place Chicago won 94 games. So money talked big back in the day. The National League came closer to parity. Eighth place Pittsburgh finished 44 games behind the pennant winning New York Giants with a 53-101 record. Steps were eventually taken to even things out somewhat. The amateur draft began in 1965 and the expansion drafts led to creation of divisions within each league so that more teams qualified for the post season. Obviously, the independence of players increased tremendously when free agency was fought for and won in the 70s.

The big enemy of parity is the capability of team owners to sign players to contracts with payment deferred for years and years. This helps teams get around being financially punished for spending too much on salaries in any given year. The Dodgers have done this, most notably with the massive contract they have with Shohei Ohtani. The idea is to spend into the future in order to sell tickets and television rights today. This is what needs to be banished if true parity is ever to exist. The big problem is that the players don’t seem to mind and the fans don’t get a vote. Okay, let’s all go shovel the snow or whatever. We”ll feel better in the Spring. Won’t we?

From Dream to Nightmare

~ latskojerry ~ 3 Comments

Have I learned my lesson? Let’s hope so. Game five of the 2024 World Series was a pleasant dream for the New York Yankees and their fans which, in the vernacular of John Smoltz, I allowed myself to join for the past week. To thine own self be true, right? No, this life long Yankees hater was overcome with desire for defeat of the best team money could buy and became openly in favor of victory for the sons of Steinbrenner. For four fun innings, it looked like the momentum had definitely shifted. A walk to Juan Soto was followed by a home run to the previously struggling Aaron Judge. Then Jazz Chisholm, who comes close to defying the Yankees grooming orders, hit another. Gerrit Cole was his determined, poker faced self mowing down the Dodgers hitters. Anthony Volpe and Alex Verdugo produced a fourth run in the second inning and the remarkably resurgent Giancarlo Stanton blasted yet another home run to make it 5-0 after three innings. One could imagine Dave Roberts flashing back to 20 years ago, when his team (the Red Sox at the time) came back in the league championship series from a three games to none deficit to vault past the Yankees to the World Series.

Then came the meltdown. Judge, who had made a great catch to deny the unstoppable Freddie freeman in the fourth, dropped a routine fly ball after Kike Hernandez started the fifth inning with the Dodger’s first hit, a single. Then Volpe made a bad throw to Chisholm at third on another routine play and the two errors had loaded the bases with none out. Cole gathered himself and struck out Gavin Lux and Shohei Ohtani and the pleasant dream was revived. Mookie Betts rolled a grounder wide of first base and Anthony Rizzo had it easily, but Betts runs hard and fast and Gerrit Cole was caught being a spectator without a ticket. Five to one, still nobody out and the bases sacked. Then came Freddie with a base hit to make it 5-3. Teoscar Hernandez then cracked a double and the score was tied and the air was out of the balloon. Cole is an experienced, fiery competitor but it was amazing that no mound visit was made yet–not by the catcher, not by pitching coach Mark Prior, not by the ghost of Thurmon Munson. After Max Muncy walked there finally was a mound visit and somehow, after that 38 pitch inning, Cole returned to pitch the sixth and part of the seventh but momentum, ever slippery, had gone back to the visitors.

Stanton’s sacrifice fly put New York back in front but the fearsome Bronx Bombers had turned into zombies. Helped by a catcher’s interference in the eighth inning, Los Angeles got what they wanted despite Ohtani’s 0 for 4 night.

Just like that it became time to say good bye to repetitive commercials for things I’ll never buy and verbose announcers that I actually listened to quite a bit this game. Now, until next Spring, the TV can rest except for English Premiere League futbol and the European Women Super League along with U.S. men and women games as they occur. Plus streaming movies and shows . Overall, MLB was very interesting all season. I’m starting to favor going back to a 154 game schedule, though. These playoffs go long, and they might turn some of us into zombies if we’re not careful.

Slip Sliding Away

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As a famous peanut farmer once said, life isn’t fair. Here I am rooting for the Yankees for the first time in a long, inconsequential life, and they are losing. As many folks with black eyes and bruises have said over time, it ain’t over yet.

I have no evidence before me, but I am sure that Aaron Boone has been crucified by many followers of the New York Yankees and the assigned press corps for his pitching moves in the first game. Gerrit Cole came out after 88 pitches and the starting pitcher used in relief to pitch to Freddie Freeman had not pitched for a long time, blah blah blah. I would agree with Derek Jeter who said that we have to acknowledge that managers know much more about their teams than cab drivers or people who write blogs. But…but..let it be known that I would NEVER, that is , NEVER walk the bases loaded to pitch to Freddie Freeman. I realize that Mookie Betts is one of the best hitters in baseball but NEVER. And I have to add that, if a Los Angeles Dodger has to be a hero, I can handle it being Freddie. It was a great game, and keep in mind that Dave Roberts pulled his starter, Jack Flaherty, while he’d been masterful as well. Two great teams are playing close games and this stuff happens, doesn’t it?

New York needed to bounce back strongly the next day but, except for Juan Soto, they waited until the ninth inning as Yoshinobu Yamamoto showed why the Dodgers traded an aircraft carrier and four Trader Joe’s stores to obtain his services. Aaron Judge will crush baseballs again. The Yanks hope that it’s this year. Boone didn’t have a dangerous batter to use in the ninth with two out because of the need to have eight or nine pitchers sucking sunflower seeds and blowing bubbles in the bullpen.

I sincerely hope that Shohei Ohtani is good to go for the rest of the series. If he’s not, I just cringe at the thought of the Dodgers having any excuse if they get beat. Don’t worry, the kind and considerate New York crowd at The Stadium will be extra sensitive to his pain.

Back to the Fifties

~ latskojerry ~ 4 Comments

It’s the Yankees and the Dodgers in the World Series! Casey Stengel‘s five straight World Series appearances as manager of the Yanks began in 1949, once with the Phillies and once with the Giants and the other three with Brooklyn. That was when television was in its infancy and they were still making Studebakers.

My first was one of my favorites, 1955. I wanted to be like Johnny Podres. Brooklyn’s lefty pitched two complete game victories, including a 2-0 win in the seventh game at Yankee Stadium helped by a great running catch by left fielder Sandy Amoros to win the series for the Dodgers and a new Chevrolet Corvette for himself as the most valuable player. Eleven years later, I was the letter carrier who delivered to his bleary early morning eyes his contract offer from the Detroit Tigers. We don’t always realize how quickly the time is passing.

Then ’56 when Sister Angeles let us watch the first three innings during my favorite school period, lunch, and then the end of Don Larsen‘s perfect game.

Being a Dodgers fan was fun in the fifties. They were the underdogs of autumn in the big city against the we like white Yankees of Yogi Berra, Mickey Mantle, Whitey Ford and friends. The Dodgers had Roy Campanella, Jim Gilliam, Gil Hodges, Don Newcombe, and Carl Furillo, plus a guy who didn’t mind being called Pee Wee Reese. In addition, their center fielder was the Duke of Flatbush, Mr. Snider.

The two teams met again after being separated by thousands of miles. Kind of the same but not. The last time was in the punctuated season of 1981. That brings up the sad shock of learning of the passing of Fernando Valenzuela. Even after I stopped loving the Dodgers I still loved “The Fat Kid”. He was an absolute tiger to oppose and an absolute gentleman to observe at all times.

That still won’t make me favor the Dodgers. There are matchups sometimes when I want both teams to win and sometimes I want both teams to lose. This one comes close to the latter. The best contests are the ones where you don’t care who wins, you just want to see the games. My solution to the Joe Davis /John Smoltz thing is to just kill the audio. That also works well between innings. Let’s just enjoy it.

Pride and Prejudice

~ latskojerry ~ 2 Comments

How is the 2024 Major League Baseball “post season” going for you so far? There are only four teams remaining now. Some of us can remember the awful old days when only two teams participated unless one of the two leagues ended the regular season with a tie for first place as the National league did in 1951, 1959, and 1962 and the American League did in 1948. Then, at most, ten games would be played to decide what is called the World Champion. So far, in 2024, 27 games have been played and we are just getting started. We think that it’s great.

Being exclusively a television viewing fan, which as we know is short for fanatic, we do get tired beyond exhaustion with the same old insurance, beer, car, truck and stomach churning fast food advertising but it’s the price we pay for living in a country where Rupert Murdoch and now the loathsome Larry Ellison control much of the airwaves. We do get some really good games and, when TBS is involved, some really good analysis from the likes of Pedro Martinez, Dusty Baker, Jimmy Rollins, and Curtis Granderson with Lauren Shehardi as an excellent host.

It’s great to know that Cleveland will be there to challenge the New York Yankees. Tarik Skubal and the Detroit Tigers were a great late season story and proved that, though it seemed they were giving up at trade deadline time, they will be a force to reckon with in the future. Their addition of Trey Sweeney at shortstop looks like it will solve the hideous Javier Baez situation very well. A.J. Hinch has bounced back well from the over rated “scandal” of his Houston Astros tenure. I’ll be rooting for the Guardians in their matchup with the powerful Yankees. Aaron Judge is likely to wreak havoc with Cleveland’s overworked pitching staff but Stephen Vogt has them believing. Emmanuel Clase is the true “closer” that most teams wish they had. Jose Ramirez and Andres Gimenez give them veteran strength that all teams crave. Judge, Juan Soto, and Giancarlo Stanton strike real fear in opposition but the Yanks may be vulnerable on the mound after Gerrit Cole. We must not fail to mention the stalwart, inspirational story of the Kansas City Royals, the team that lost 106 games in 2023 and won lots of games and many hearts as they became very serious threats this season Few if any of us expected three teams from the A.L. Central to make the playoffs but there they all were, and deservedly so.

For the first time since 1969, I will be a diehard New York Mets follower this autumn. Like the San Diego Padres, they were a fabulous second half team. No one should count them out against the Los Angeles Dodgers in this League Championship Series. Francisco Lindor is on a sensational roll these days and the Mets have a strong balance of speed, defense, and pitching that is reminding me of a World Series team from last year–the Arizona Diamondbacks. If this is a “new” trend in baseball, we will all be happier. Full counts, walks, and solo home runs are large contributors to snoring nationally. I once loved the Dodgers, but their yard has turned into a noiseatorium and they just have too much money . I do like Freddie Freeman and Teoscar Hernandez but they are like the old Yankees, too arrogant and wealthy. Plus, their DH has poor judgement. San Diego might actually be the better team, but not for the last 25 innings. After the Braves fell out amid lots of bad injury luck, I thought the Phillies would end up N.L. champs. That’s why I think the Mets are for real.

In other news, what do you call it, irony? Pete Rose, deservedly banished, has passed away in the year that Fan Dual has become “a proud partner of MLB”. Line up, suckers! Also, all of those team color towels were a bit tacky.

It’s still the best game in the world, let’s enjoy!

 

 

Hitters and Pitchers

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A considerable portion of land in the United States and, particularly, in California is currently on fire. Migration patterns of wildlife not considered human are known to have been altered already due to the permanent climate change that has persisted for decades. Safe water and food are both becoming scarce.

Armed conflicts and outright assaults continue unabated to the profit of some and destruction of many. Simultaneously, we are led to believe that the office of president of the United States is the most powerful office in the world, where the “leader of the free world” attempts to solve the big problems of the day. So, what are the issues that are meant to be debated as the two (as usual) candidates convene for us?

  1. Inflation. Who can be blamed for the persistent ancient form of grand theft? Why, the president, of course.
  2. Immigration. Let’s all get going on having the torch that Liberty is holding replaced with her middle finger pointed skyward.
  3. The Supreme Court.Let’s give them a 12-year mission to explain the infield fly rule to all of us with limited intellect and no other cases can be considered until they do.
  4. Abortion. Ain’t nobody’s business but her own.

National politics is eerily akin to how it was in 1968 and the baseball season, with its lack of .300 hitters resembles the 1968 season in that regard as well. However, there is no threat of a starting pitcher equaling Denny McLain,who won 31 games that season. Bob Gibson pitched about as well as anyone ever and lost nine games despite an earned run average of 1.12. Juan Marichal pitched 326 innings, which would be the equivalent of three seasons for many of today’s twirlers.

But I have a question that I don’t think Statcast can answer. Are we witnessing the highest total of broken bats in baseball history or have I become too easily distracted? Both may be true. And, as of this writing,, the Detroit Tigers and St. Louis Cardinals conceivably could still meet in this year’s World Series. History does not ever really repeat itself, except for television commercials.

Wait ‘Til Next Year

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For some,it came almost immediately. We knew long before the month of May ended that the Chicago White Sox, the Colorado Rockies, and the West Covina Angels weren’t going to the World Series this year. Now that it’s September, even the most stubborn and loyal fans of big league baseball teams are having to face reality.

When we get together with a group that has a goal in mind and begin the long hard task to attain what is desired, it’s a commitment. We commit to working hard and getting along with each other so that we might succeed as a group. To baseball teams, that sounds like fun in March and April, but it can get a little rough come August and September. Losers will always outnumber winners but dreams of October baseball can defy logic. I’m watching players like Mike Yastrzemski and Matt Chapman, who have busted their asses since spring training to make sure that their team does well, have to start to accept the fact that it ain’t going to happen. Weeks from now they, and many others like Francisco Lindor and Julio Rodriguez and justin Verlander may be able to accept that they had done what they could but it was not enough. Right now,however, it is painful.

There are still a lot of good games to be played. Kansas City played well long enough while Cleveland stumbled long enough that those two teams got tied for first place in the American League Central before the Royals lost Vinnie Pasquantino. Bobby Witt Jr. has been a great story but it would be a surprise if either team got beyond winning their division.

Right after most of us had written them off, the Arizona Diamondbacks are looking very, very strong down the stretch. like a lot of teams, they have been trying to overcome serious injuries, including a recent one to Gilbert Moreno, one of the best young catchers in the game. The Serpientes might be hitting their stride at just the right time, similar to last season. Their World series opponent last year, the Texas Rangers, look like they will be spectators this time around.

Watching the Braves and Phillies on ESPN Sunday Night Talk Show was good. I had to turn off the sound while they discussed college football with Bryce Harper while he was playing first base but it was a great game between two very good teams.

Come on, Baltimore, you can do it. Milwaukee is a real force. They are the No Names right now but that won’t last much longer. The Dodgers look like a sloppy organization lately but they had the good sense to sign Nick Ahmed after the Giants blithely unloaded him and Alex Cobb and Jorge Soler under the guise of a youth movement that shows talent still mostly untested under management that seemingly expects little development of stamina before the call to perform in the majors. It’s past the dog days—it’s the damn! days.

The Athletics of Oakland by way of Kansas City and Philadelphia have been one of the most improved teams this season. They will be missed in a big way. Potential owners of teams ought to be required to have ties and commitment to their locale other than rhetorical. I know, we could say that about a whole lot of businesses.

The best part of managing a professional team is the worst part. When you get fired, you don’t have to manage for a while.

The next great baseball movie will have little newsreel or C.G. action parts but instead it will feature dramatic music scenes as wily executives trade roster parts.

Got a bet on when we will see “—-bets, the official major league betting partner”?

Is Pat Murphy the new model for trendy team leadership?

Favorite team announcers: Dan Shulman, Mike Krukow, Jon Miller, Duane Kuiper, Dave Fleming, Dave O’Brien,John Kruk, Bob Walk, Jon Sciambi, and Jim Deshaies.