2013 MLB Regular Season running thread

[Huggy]

J.A. Happs's biggest injury concern after getting hit in the head with Desmond Jennings's line drive? A sprained knee. Miraculous.

http://sports.nationalpost.com/2013/05/08/blue-jays-j-a-happ-very-fortunate-after-line-drive-hits-him-in-the-head/

 

[Armchair_QB]

Angel is the Hochuli of MLB.

Except that Hochuli is competent.

Yep. This goes beyond simply being a bad umpire or official.

Bucknor's an incompetent tool who is stealing money every time he puts on an umpire's uniform but Angel's just a forking piece of shirt and he'd be a forking piece of shirt if he was selling insurance or digging ditches.

 

[Captain_Kirk]

Cubs fan chokes on a hot dog at Wrigley and dies:

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/teacher-chokes-hot-dog-cubs-031127942--mlb.html

28 yr old woman.

As a Cardinal fan, I'm sure there are a number of cracks that could be made here, but I'll leave that to others.

 

[HanSenSE]

MLB: No reversal. A judgment call.

http://blog.sfgate.com/athletics/2013/05/09/mlb-decision-not-to-overturn-erroneous-call-stands-as-final/

 

[steveu]

In all seriousness, how the heck did Angel Hernandez become a crew chief? Did he get that post just by being around long enough? forking mind boggling.

They better hope no umpire comes out like Tim Donaghy did in the NBA. If it's revealed that an umpire was betting on baseball games, that could open up the biggest can of worms in the game's history ("I wonder if he blew that call on purpose because he had money on the game?")

 

[Huggy]

Brett Lawrie pulls the old "you never played the game" card and rips the haters on the Jays' disastrous start:

http://globalnews.ca/news/549139/brett-lawrie-fires-back-at-critics-on-twitter/

The tweet has been deleted. (Quelle surprise.) Spend more time looking to get hits or taking a forking walk. Dumbass. His pep talk to Ricky Romero last night was pure comedy gold, especially when you see how much good it did when Romero lasted 1/3 of an inning.

 

[RubberSoul1979]

Regarding last night's shenanigans in Cleveland: Shocking. MLB, the sport that succeeds in spite of itself, drops the ball again.

I say "succeeds," if you measure success by the ability to earn record profits despite:

- The consistent absence of leadership from the Commissioner's office. Unless it's the World Baseball Classic so Joe Torre can pretend to be a manager. Or moving the Astros to the American League.
- Record low TV ratings.
- No ability to market its teams, unless its the Red Sox or Yankees. heck-o, the Giants have won two of the last three World Series. Where do you see them outside Bay Area media?
- A total disdain of replay technology. Even tennis - TENNIS! - relies on it extensively, without compromising anything.
- ZERO relevance in the African-American community, which is directly connected to...
- Baseball becoming a country club sport at the youth level in the U.S.
- And of course, incompetent umpires who won't have a TV tell them what to do.

 

[LongTimeListener]

Regarding last night's shenanigans in Cleveland: Shocking. MLB, the sport that succeeds in spite of itself, drops the ball again.

I say "succeeds," if you measure success by the ability to earn record profits despite:

- The consistent absence of leadership from the Commissioner's office. Unless it's the World Baseball Classic so Joe Torre can pretend to be a manager. Or moving the Astros to the American League.
- Record low TV ratings.
- No ability to market its teams, unless its the Red Sox or Yankees. heck-o, the Giants have won two of the last three World Series. Where do you see them outside Bay Area media?
- A total disdain of replay technology. Even tennis - TENNIS! - relies on it extensively, without compromising anything.
- ZERO relevance in the African-American community, which is directly connected to...
- Baseball becoming a country club sport at the youth level in the U.S.
- And of course, incompetent umpires who won't have a TV tell them what to do.

Yeah baseball's really sucking right now. Probably going to shut down.

Let's not make more of this than it is.

 

[RubberSoul1979]

LongTime, go ahead and argue any of the points I made.

1) MLB is Kenny Banya following Jerry Seinfeld on stage, raking in profits only because its marquee teams are signing huge regional cable network deals.
2) Nobody watches the All-Star Game. Or playoffs. Or World Series.
3) Forget "The Sandlot." It's now "The Travel Ball Team." What used to be a great equalizer -- think of all the American born-players, the Baby Boomers and soon after -- who spanned racial and socio-economic lines -- is now a country club game. Unless there are dozens more Jason Heywards out there, (insanely talented African-Americans born to parents who can spend thousands on private coaches and exclusive club teams), I think baseball in this country will lose even more of its soul.
4) The sports runs from replay technology like a dog from a vaccum cleaner (or like most of the SEC avoided the forward pass until Steve Spurrier became head coach at Florida).
5) Nobody, outside KNBR-range, could name more than two San Francisco Giants.
6) The umpires' ranks are filled with goons, who who have no uniform strike zone and who think they're bigger than the game. Angel Hernandez, mind you, was the guy who threw Steve McMichael -- about to sing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" -- out of Wrigley Field.

 

[LongTimeListener]

You're being stupid. "Only because" its teams are signing huge regional deals? That has been the whole frickin' marketing strategy for 30 years and is paying off in buckets now. It isn't some random thing that happened. They planned it that way because they saw the difficulties coming to network/over-the-air businesses. They also are one of the greatest businesses in the world, with Apple and maybe Netflix being the others, at monetizing the Internet. This is historical fact and has been studied in business schools.

I don't know what MLB has to do with travel teams or how parents want to spend their money. I will say though that for all the failings of travel ball, the one thing it is very very good at is identifying major league prospects early.

The rest of your stuff just sounds like KNBR bullshirt. I don't know why any of it even matters.

 

[RubberSoul1979]

Right. It doesn't matter.

Pretty soon, the only American-born players left in baseball will be from priveleged, suburban families.

The postseason has been shuffled from NBC, to CBS. to ABC Family, to the Tyler Perry network. That's progress? What's next? TLC?

Tennis can institute sensical instant replay, but baseball -- with all the Ivy League MBA's in its ranks -- can't get it right.

While "monetizing the Internet," how many potential viewers -- of TV and the 'net -- get blacked out in the process?

Just because unhappy deck-wads like you don't care, it still matters.

 

[Armchair_QB]

The Stupid is strong here.