I've missed you all. Work, theater, and the flu have kept me away too long. And while I'm making excuses for things, I'm still having a difficult time getting artwork for each and every blog, so you might not see any images attached for a while. But my hope is that you haven't stuck around purely for the pictures. But enough of that, let's get down to some things I have missed.
Let's start with one issue that was on the front burner for a while. One day a week or two ago, Hanley Ramirez, shortstop for the Florida Marlins, fouled a ball off of his foot early in the game. Later in that same game, he misplayed a ball that then rolled into the outfield. He then proceeded to slowly jog after it. Now, you're supposed to play 100% on every play, and while that's nearly impossible to do for everyone who isn't Pete Rose, Hanley cleared didn't even did it 50%. This was a disgrace to baseball. And then to further embarrass himself, Hanley's only defense after being benched by manager Fredi Gonzalez, was to call out his coach for having never played in the majors, and thus not understanding the situation. This topic lit up the call-boards for radio talk shows for a few days. It didn't finally get resolved though, until Andre "Hawk" Dawson and Tony Perez, both Hall of Famers, special assistants to Marlins team president, and general awesome dudes, laid the smack down on Hanley. They told him how it is, and how it was going to be, and to apologize and play the game right. Hanley quickly made amends. Issue over. Know your role young punk.
Three other remarkable things happened while I was away, and they all occurred on the same day. On Saturday, Kendry Morales of the Los Angeles Angels hit a walk-off grand slam. Awesome. But, while coming home to get his proper congratulations, Kendry was bitten by the back-luck bug, and fractured his leg upon landing on home plate. Not awesome. This is an odd occurrence that I've never heard of, let alone seen before. And it's a shame, because Morales was having a great season so far, hitting .290, with 11 homers, and 39 RBIs to lead his team in all three categories. Surgery is scheduled but can not be performed before the swelling goes down, meaning the vast majority of the season is now gone for Morales. Perhaps a September return will happen, but it doesn't look too bright as of now. The Angels may not be taking the division as I had predicted after all.
Unfortunately another injury was big news on Saturday. Cleveland Indians Pitcher David Huff was struck in the head by a line drive from Alex Rodriguez. I just recently watched the video and it's a hard thing to watch. The ball hit Huff so hard, that the ball actually bounced into right field. A stretcher was called out and Huff remained on the ground for about six minutes. He never loss consciousness though, which is a great sign. It makes you realize that the game isn't as important as one person's life, and really puts things like homeruns, money, and fame into their proper perspective. Best wishes for a quick recovery David Huff.
The positive news story that happened this past Saturday was yet another perfect game being thrown. That's only, what, two in the past month?! There have never been two perfect games thrown in one season before. And if you count Mark Buehrle's from last season, that's three in less than one full year of baseball. This most recent gem was hurled by new-Phillies ace Roy Halladay. Doc was lights out with his breaking hard stuff on Saturday, striking out 11 to defeat the Florida Marlins 1-0. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the 33-year-old's performance was that after the final pitch, he just smiled, and awaited his hugging teammates. Always a rock, Halladay showed tempered emotion in perhaps the finest hour of his Hall of Fame-worthy career.
It is just amazing to have this kind of constant success from pitchers. Which begs the question, is this the year of the pitcher? It's not just one or two guys that's rocking the baseball world. It's everybody. Mark Buehrle last year, Ubaldo Jimenez's no-hitter early this year, and his stellar 2010 season thus far. Dallas Braden's perfect game, and now Halladay's too. But there have been tons of shutouts too. On Saturday alone, there were four. I saw that someone had pitched a perfect game, but I had to wait to see who, because there were so many scores scrolling by that could have been the culprit. Even the Philadelphia Phillies, a tremendous offense juggernaut, were the victims of three shutouts before Halladay's perfection, and Sunday they were shutout again.
There are 28 guys in both leagues that have an ERA of 3.00 or under currently. That's a very high number. And these are star pitchers, not lucky-break wonders. And they are young and old. David Price of the Tampa Bay Rays is 7-2 with a 2.57 ERA. Adam Wainwright is 7-3 with a 2.28 ERA and 77 Ks! Even look at Houston Astro Roy Oswalt who is 3-6, but has had a lot of hard-luck losses. He has an ERA of 2.35 and a strikeout-per-inning-pitched. He just has no offense behind him. Or Matt Cain of the S.F. Giants, who should be 6-1, but because he gets no run support behind his 2.50 ERA, he's 3-4 instead.
There is dominant pitching going on right now in the majors. Pitchers certainly are getting taller and stronger, as is the case with just about every San Diego hurler today, N.Y. Met Mike Pelfrey at 6'7", or Tamp Bay Ray Jeff Neimann, who is 6'9" for crying out loud! Maybe it's that hitters are finally off the steroids, and can't hit the ball with as much power or effectiveness as before. There are still some insanely good hitters to be sure, but now that the mediocre have returned to being mediocre, perhaps pitching is finally taking over again. Not since 1968 has pitching been highlighted like this before. I love it, and I hope it continues. Strikeouts might not be as sexy as homeruns, but it's still damn good baseball.
Question: Can you name the other Philadelphia Phillies pitcher who threw a perfect game? Extra points if you know what year it was too.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Monday, May 17, 2010
Milestones
So it's been 10 long days since my last blog entry, and it feels like an eternity for me. Time passes in such odd ways for us sometimes. And yet there are milestones that we reach which help us keep track of our achievements in life. I've been busy with some personal milestones; my birthday, my girlfriend's college graduation, and my involvement with a tremendous theater show. And once again, the baseball world mirrors real life. A ball player hits a certain milestone in his career, and "attention must be paid." (Do you know where that's from?) So let's take the time to remember the moments and the people who recently have strode past another milestone in baseball, and we'll remember those who finally reached that last spike in the road.
In the past few weeks several prominent players have reached important statisical numbers. True, their just numbers, but they tell the story of a career, and what is still left to come of it. Take hits for instance. To have 1000 hits in a career is a great achievement. It means you stuck around long enough to play around 5-8 years of quality baseball. That could be a lifetime goal for some, but for Chase Utley of the Philadelphia Phillies and David Wright of the New York Mets, it is merely the opening salvo of two stellar careers. Utley is only 31 years old, and Wright is just 27. Both of these players still have time to potentially double their hit totals.
Hideki Matsui, of the Los Angeles Angels doesn't quite have that opportunity as he is already 36, having played a good deal of his career in Japan. He's reached 1000 hits all the same, however, and that is something to be congratulated. Meanwhile, Magglio Ordonez of the Detroit Tigers has already done what Utley and Wright hope to accomplish. Magglio notched his 2000th hit while playing the Twins a few weeks back. The likelihood of Mags getting around to 3000 is a bit low as his production has fallen in the past few years, and he, like Godzilla, is 36. But 2500 hits is realistic enough, and in addition to a career .312 batting average, the Hall of Fame is something Ordonez might sniff one day.
Hitters weren't the only ones having fun reaching milstones though. Roy Oswalt stuck out his 1500th batter this year, and is just 11 wins shy of 150. He might not make it to that goal as an Houston Astro however. Oswalt has agreed to be traded, if it helps the Astros rebuild, that is. Not to be outdone though, Oakland Athletics' pitcher Dallas Braden went ahead and put everyone else's accomplishments on the back burner by pitching the 19th perfect game in baseball history. And he did it against the hottest team in baseball, the Tampa Bay Rays. If the number 19 doesn't tell you that a perfect game is a rare feat in baseball, then just let me explain what a perfect game is. For a pitcher, a win is great. A shutout is a career highlight. A no-hitter is sensational. A perfect game, is all of those things, and more.
And Braden did it with class. He could've told A-Rod to shove it, who he'd had a tiff with a few days earlier, but he didn't. Instead he was quoted as saying, "It's without a doubt a team effort. You got eight guys out there chasing balls and knocking balls down for me. So this is ours, not just mine, this is ours." That is old-school, and it's the right way to go about things.
And speaking of the right way to do things, let's end this blog by mentioning a few guys who did that their whole lives through. Baseball mourned the passing of broadcaster Ernie Harwell and pitcher Robin Roberts recently. Harwell, a gentleman of the highest caliber, broadcasted Detroit Tiger games for 41 years, and was known for his down-home southern charm. When a batter was struck out looking, Ernie said "he stood there like a house on the side of the road." And when a double play happened, it was "two for the price of one." Classic.
Roberts, on the other hand, was merely 'the greatest right-handed pitcher the Phillies ever had.' Between '52 and '55 Roberts had 97 wins. In four years! He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1976 with 286 career wins to his well-respected name. Author James A. Michener may have summed up Roberts best when he stated, "For two generations of fans, he symbolized the best in athletic competition." These men knew that the game is more than numbers. It's an appreciation for those who play it the right way, every time they go out there. Harwell may not have been on the field, like the other guys mentioned, but he meant just as much to the people of Detroit, and others around the country. To find an athlete or media personality with class is a rarity in today's world. Not quite as rare as a perfect game, but rare nonetheless. Let's honor it while it's here, and miss it when it's gone.
Thanks go to my brother Ernie for his great drawing of Dallas Braden. And thanks to www.baseball-reference.com for some wonderful quotes.
In the past few weeks several prominent players have reached important statisical numbers. True, their just numbers, but they tell the story of a career, and what is still left to come of it. Take hits for instance. To have 1000 hits in a career is a great achievement. It means you stuck around long enough to play around 5-8 years of quality baseball. That could be a lifetime goal for some, but for Chase Utley of the Philadelphia Phillies and David Wright of the New York Mets, it is merely the opening salvo of two stellar careers. Utley is only 31 years old, and Wright is just 27. Both of these players still have time to potentially double their hit totals.
Hideki Matsui, of the Los Angeles Angels doesn't quite have that opportunity as he is already 36, having played a good deal of his career in Japan. He's reached 1000 hits all the same, however, and that is something to be congratulated. Meanwhile, Magglio Ordonez of the Detroit Tigers has already done what Utley and Wright hope to accomplish. Magglio notched his 2000th hit while playing the Twins a few weeks back. The likelihood of Mags getting around to 3000 is a bit low as his production has fallen in the past few years, and he, like Godzilla, is 36. But 2500 hits is realistic enough, and in addition to a career .312 batting average, the Hall of Fame is something Ordonez might sniff one day.
Hitters weren't the only ones having fun reaching milstones though. Roy Oswalt stuck out his 1500th batter this year, and is just 11 wins shy of 150. He might not make it to that goal as an Houston Astro however. Oswalt has agreed to be traded, if it helps the Astros rebuild, that is. Not to be outdone though, Oakland Athletics' pitcher Dallas Braden went ahead and put everyone else's accomplishments on the back burner by pitching the 19th perfect game in baseball history. And he did it against the hottest team in baseball, the Tampa Bay Rays. If the number 19 doesn't tell you that a perfect game is a rare feat in baseball, then just let me explain what a perfect game is. For a pitcher, a win is great. A shutout is a career highlight. A no-hitter is sensational. A perfect game, is all of those things, and more.
And Braden did it with class. He could've told A-Rod to shove it, who he'd had a tiff with a few days earlier, but he didn't. Instead he was quoted as saying, "It's without a doubt a team effort. You got eight guys out there chasing balls and knocking balls down for me. So this is ours, not just mine, this is ours." That is old-school, and it's the right way to go about things.
And speaking of the right way to do things, let's end this blog by mentioning a few guys who did that their whole lives through. Baseball mourned the passing of broadcaster Ernie Harwell and pitcher Robin Roberts recently. Harwell, a gentleman of the highest caliber, broadcasted Detroit Tiger games for 41 years, and was known for his down-home southern charm. When a batter was struck out looking, Ernie said "he stood there like a house on the side of the road." And when a double play happened, it was "two for the price of one." Classic.
Roberts, on the other hand, was merely 'the greatest right-handed pitcher the Phillies ever had.' Between '52 and '55 Roberts had 97 wins. In four years! He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1976 with 286 career wins to his well-respected name. Author James A. Michener may have summed up Roberts best when he stated, "For two generations of fans, he symbolized the best in athletic competition." These men knew that the game is more than numbers. It's an appreciation for those who play it the right way, every time they go out there. Harwell may not have been on the field, like the other guys mentioned, but he meant just as much to the people of Detroit, and others around the country. To find an athlete or media personality with class is a rarity in today's world. Not quite as rare as a perfect game, but rare nonetheless. Let's honor it while it's here, and miss it when it's gone.
Thanks go to my brother Ernie for his great drawing of Dallas Braden. And thanks to www.baseball-reference.com for some wonderful quotes.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Howard's Millions
Hey everybody! I know, it's been a little while since I wrote last, but I have been fairly busy. And you may have noticed that in this blog, as in my now edited prior blogs, that the pictures of ballplayers you have grown accustomed to seeing are now gone. That is due to the fact that I have basically been stealing photos off the Internet. While I'm sure no one has been harmed by my doing so, I have decided to take a different route to my entertainment exploration and offer up some baseball-inspired artwork instead. Now unfortunately for you, the image above was done by me, and I apologize. But soon I hope to have a few talented artists helping me out, and you'll be privy to their superior work. For now, you get my sketching. And before we begin, there is something wrong with the picture above, other than the lack of quality. Can you tell me what it is baseball fan??
Now on to baseball itself. As you may have heard, a big splash was made in the baseball world about a week ago. Mr. Ryan Howard of the Philadelphia Phillies has signed a monstrous five-year, $125 million dollar extension, which will keep the big man with the team until 2016 at least. There is an option for the 2017 season as well. Howard is already making $19 million this year, and that will go up to $20 million for the next three years, before being bumped up again to $25 million for the remainder of his tenure. That is a LOT of money.
Now if anyone deserves to be paid handsomely for his baseball production, then it's Hammerin' Howard (I just made that up). He won Rookie of the Year in 2005 and has been in the top five of the Most Valuable Player race for the past four years. And in those past four seasons, he has averaged 49 homeruns and 143 RBIs. He has been an integral part of the Phillies' two World Series appearances, and a celebrity in the City of Brotherly Love. So why do I still have a complaint about this contract?
Well, despite what you might be thinking, it's not because I'm a Mets fan. In fact, if the Mets had someone like Ryan Howard, I'd want them to lock him up as well. But what I dislike is the length and terms of this and other contracts like it. Howard is currently 30-years young, so he is in the midst of his prime hitting years. But the extension he just signed will keep him around until his 36th birthday. I would be shocked, SHOCKED, if he hits even close to 49 homers and drives in 143 runs when he's 36.
The fact is that talent depreciates over time. It happens to the best of athletes and there's nothing that can be done about it, except try to delay it for as long as possible. To his credit, Ryan is in fantastic shape and has even lost weight over the past couple of years to improve his defense. But with his better defense comes more opportunities now for him to get hurt making a great diving play. I'm not saying it's going to happen, and I certainly hope it doesn't, but it's possible.
Even if somehow Ryan Howard remains at the top of his game for several years to come, will his production really be worth $25 million at that point. That is the main problem I have with these contracts. By signing a player to that much money for that much time, you are rewarding them for what they have done, and not what they will do. It's great that the Phillies organization thinks so highly of Howard to thank him the way they are. But wouldn't a better tactic be to renegotiate his current contract, and wait to do the extension later?
Howard Medgel wrote a great article about this very thing that I found at MLBtraderumors.com. With Howard's extension now in place, the 2012 season looks problematic for the Phillies. In that year, they will have $87 million dollars tied up in seven players; Howard, Roy Halladay, Chase Utley, Joe Blanton, Shane Victorino, Carlos Ruiz, and an assumed buyout of Brad Lidge's contract. You'll notice that doesn't account for Cole Hamels, Jayson Werth or Jimmy Rollins sticking around. Whether the Phillies can find a way to afford all these guys or not remains to be seen. It's undeniable, however, that Howard's contract has significantly altered the way the Phillies will be able to negotiate future deals.
I'm not saying this is the death of the Phillies dynasty. Far from it. Although as a Mets fan I would love nothing more. But it does show exactly how these enormous contracts can not only screw up a team's present circumstances, but their future ones as well. An extra $5 million for one player may not seem that much, but look at what that money might get you; a number five pitcher, a super-utility guy, maybe even a star veteran who just wants to sign with a contender. But because the team is loaded with big contacts, those small and possibly important additions may disappear. And if they disappear, maybe the playoffs will too.
Now on to baseball itself. As you may have heard, a big splash was made in the baseball world about a week ago. Mr. Ryan Howard of the Philadelphia Phillies has signed a monstrous five-year, $125 million dollar extension, which will keep the big man with the team until 2016 at least. There is an option for the 2017 season as well. Howard is already making $19 million this year, and that will go up to $20 million for the next three years, before being bumped up again to $25 million for the remainder of his tenure. That is a LOT of money.
Now if anyone deserves to be paid handsomely for his baseball production, then it's Hammerin' Howard (I just made that up). He won Rookie of the Year in 2005 and has been in the top five of the Most Valuable Player race for the past four years. And in those past four seasons, he has averaged 49 homeruns and 143 RBIs. He has been an integral part of the Phillies' two World Series appearances, and a celebrity in the City of Brotherly Love. So why do I still have a complaint about this contract?
Well, despite what you might be thinking, it's not because I'm a Mets fan. In fact, if the Mets had someone like Ryan Howard, I'd want them to lock him up as well. But what I dislike is the length and terms of this and other contracts like it. Howard is currently 30-years young, so he is in the midst of his prime hitting years. But the extension he just signed will keep him around until his 36th birthday. I would be shocked, SHOCKED, if he hits even close to 49 homers and drives in 143 runs when he's 36.
The fact is that talent depreciates over time. It happens to the best of athletes and there's nothing that can be done about it, except try to delay it for as long as possible. To his credit, Ryan is in fantastic shape and has even lost weight over the past couple of years to improve his defense. But with his better defense comes more opportunities now for him to get hurt making a great diving play. I'm not saying it's going to happen, and I certainly hope it doesn't, but it's possible.
Even if somehow Ryan Howard remains at the top of his game for several years to come, will his production really be worth $25 million at that point. That is the main problem I have with these contracts. By signing a player to that much money for that much time, you are rewarding them for what they have done, and not what they will do. It's great that the Phillies organization thinks so highly of Howard to thank him the way they are. But wouldn't a better tactic be to renegotiate his current contract, and wait to do the extension later?
Howard Medgel wrote a great article about this very thing that I found at MLBtraderumors.com. With Howard's extension now in place, the 2012 season looks problematic for the Phillies. In that year, they will have $87 million dollars tied up in seven players; Howard, Roy Halladay, Chase Utley, Joe Blanton, Shane Victorino, Carlos Ruiz, and an assumed buyout of Brad Lidge's contract. You'll notice that doesn't account for Cole Hamels, Jayson Werth or Jimmy Rollins sticking around. Whether the Phillies can find a way to afford all these guys or not remains to be seen. It's undeniable, however, that Howard's contract has significantly altered the way the Phillies will be able to negotiate future deals.
I'm not saying this is the death of the Phillies dynasty. Far from it. Although as a Mets fan I would love nothing more. But it does show exactly how these enormous contracts can not only screw up a team's present circumstances, but their future ones as well. An extra $5 million for one player may not seem that much, but look at what that money might get you; a number five pitcher, a super-utility guy, maybe even a star veteran who just wants to sign with a contender. But because the team is loaded with big contacts, those small and possibly important additions may disappear. And if they disappear, maybe the playoffs will too.
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