Running 2011 Baseball Thread, Vol. I: Dedicated to spnited

Something he said on Sunday Night Baseball or just 'he's an effin' d-bag' in general? Or both? Just curious.

 

Lost in all of the A.J. Burnett-Joe Girardi he said-he said was Burnett's do ...



That picture doesn't even come close to doing justice what he was rocking in the locker room interview.

http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=18259975

He looks like Sting fucked the Shaggy Dog.

 

ESPN gave him an opportunity to interview for Mike Quade's job during the seventh inning last night and he went off on a rant that can be summed up like this:

"The Cubs suck because Starlin Castro takes his glove off between pitches"

 

Pretty sweet triple play from a Triple-A game. Center fielder juggles a deep fly ball, has it bounce off his head, gathers it in and fires back to the infield for an easy 8-6-3.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/21/logan-schafer-triple-play-video_n_932533.html

 

Most of the criticisms were inane, but the part where he had his back to the batter as the pitch was being thrown was pretty damning.

 

And if he had stopped there he would had a great point. Instead he acted like Castro was the first guy in the history of professional baseball to do that.

Funniest part of the whole thing was him going on and on about Castro taking his glove off between pitches and how that's not how you play the game. ESPN shows Castro do this like 3-4 times.

Then he praises Darwin Barney as a guy who does things "the right way" and is always in position and ready to play.

They then cut to a shot of Barney between pitches and he has his glove off.

 

Don't know how many Padres fans we have on here, but the team site has the video of Sunday's ceremony where they retired Trevor Hoffman's number before the game.

It's a little less than an hour long, but if you don't have that much time, skip to the end where they show a clip of Trevor's late father singing the national anthem at Fenway before a game where Glenn Hoffman was the starting shortstop for the Red Sox. The Dad was known as "The Singing Usher" when he worked at Anaheim Stadium back in the day.

http://sandiego.padres.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=18291081&c_id=sd

P.S.: The video shoutout from AC/DC's Brian Johnson (you know, the "Hell's Bells" connection) was pretty cool too.

 

From Jonah Keri's Grantland breakdown of what the Cubs should do to rebuild post-Hendry comes this nugget:

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/6884431/the-road-map-cubs-resurgence

Wow.

 

Not breaking any news here, but Cliff Lee is an f'n stud. Not just for his pitching (7 IP, 3H, 3W, 7K, 0R in a 10-0 win over the Mets tonight), but he might be the best offensive pitcher in baseball right now.
Tonight, second inning, Phils up 1-0, he gets a two-out single and then scores from first on a triple by Shane Victorino to make it 3-0. Phils go on to another easy win.
Lee's average is up to .220 for the season, he's got a couple of homers and hits in three of his last five starts. He's not an automatic out by any means and adds yet another facet to that team.
Haven't seen a pitcher take hitting seriously like that in a while. Maybe Zambrano, Hampton or Maddux are the only ones who jump out at me as guys who seemed to really grasp how much they can help themselves with the bat and worked hard to get better at that part of the game.

 

Yovani Gallardo and Dontrelle Willis can handle the lumber as well. And Micah Owings is one of the best hitting pitchers of all-time.

 

Forgot about Owings. Good call there. Didn't either the Reds or D-backs try to use him as an outfielder, for a bit, on days when he wasn't pitching? I know they've both used him as a pinch-hitter well before their benches dried up in an extra inning game.
Also forgot about CC Sabathia. Hasn't pitched much in the NL, but I think he hit a couple homers when he was with the Brewers (and I know he had one in an interleague game).

 

Oldass Livan Hernandez seems to get a hit everytime I see his fatass in the box.