20 September 04
Choking
The Red Sox are doing their thing, right on schedule. They lost yesterday 11-1 against the hated Yankees and lost to Baltimore today. You wouldn’t mind so much if they had been awful all season, but this follows a good run. They’ll probably just squeak the wildcard, do well for four games, and then JUST lose. You’d think we wouldn’t come back year after year for more, but here we are.
I don’t believe in the curse of the bambino, but the Red Sox sure as hell do.
19 July 04
Post the All-Star Break
Wimbledon’s over, we’re in the final week of the Tour de France, and the circus that is baseball’s All-Star game is finally put away. Now we can get serious about the various standings, start to pay attention when poor Tampa Bay beats the dreaded Yankees, as they did today.
The rivalry between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees is famously one-sided. New York smiles smugly at the little provincial New Englanders from up the coast and occasionally seems genuinely hurt by the level of vitriol hurled in its direction. Not understanding why everyone doesn’t automatically love a winner.
Remind you of anyone?
4 July 04
A Holiday Baseball Outing
Today we went to see the SF Giants play the Oakland A’s in SBC Park in San Francisco. We drove to Vallejo and took the ferry from there into San Francisco. The ferry ride is a very pleasant 55 minute journey, and it was crowded with people going to the game, both A’s and Giants fans. The boat even docked at the pier nearest the ballpark, owing to some temporary problems at the Ferry Building. This was convenient allowing us to arrive in time to catch some of the batting practice. We got some lunch, and then went to our seats high above home plate (see my sketch at right).
The A’s were dominant all day, and ended up winning 9-6. Mark Mulder pitched well and won the game, bringing his record to 11-2. Eric Byrnes had a banner day, hitting two three-run home runs. We saw Barry Bonds break a record: he walked twice and thus became the all-time career walks leader, passing Ricky Henderson. But he didn’t get a hit today, and struck out on a 96-mile-an-hour Octavio Dotel fastball (the A’s new closer from Houston) to end the game.
It was a long 10-hour outing. The kitties were hungry when we got home, but seemed to harbor no resentments at our extended disappearance.
19 May 04
Perfection
I’ve always been a bit curious about the term “perfect” when applied to a pitched game—”no hitter” is much more descriptive and, well, gritty sounding. For all you non-baseball fans, a perfect game is when the pitcher allows no hits, no walks, nobody at all to get on base. In any way. A no-hitter can include walks, errors, and all kinds of fumbling.
Randy Johnson was the oldest (40) player to pitch a perfect game in the major leagues last night for the Arizona Diamondbacks. He’s a gangly, 7-ft character whose nickname is the Big Unit, he doesn’t say much, doesn’t smile much. But he was smiling last night. He joins only 14 others who have accomplished this feat in 100 years. Congratulations Randy Johnson. Now will ya go and join your buddy Curt Schilling over at the Red Sox??
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In non-baseball news, there’s a great new place blog to explore: The Where Project by Boston College graduate student Tim Lindgren. As the Ecotone Wiki approaches its first anniversary as a collaborative exploration of place in the blogosphere, it’s heartening to see the arrival of newcomers such as Tim. Stop on by!
23 April 04
Night At The River Cats
We just came back from a baseball game, going to watch the Sacramento River Cats, the Triple-A team for the Oakland A’s, play the Salt Lake Stingers. The River Cats played well and won 5-1 in a game that was over quickly. It was UC Davis group night and we ended up sitting near one of Pica’s coworkers. The Cal Aggie Marching Band-Uh came and performed too, a few of them still wearing their customary sunglasses.
At left we see Dinger, the River Cats’ mascot, known for getting into lots of mischief.
13 April 04
Baseball In Verse
Thanks to an article on Slate today about the plethora of baseball blogs, I’ve discovered Humbug, written by Score Bard, that features many verses about current events in baseball. For instance from his prognostications for the NL West this season, we have:
Padres
It came to me once in a dream:
The Padres will have a good team.
I will trust this strange vision;
They will win the division
Or I’ll pinch myself, sit up and scream.
Giants
Maybe Alfonzo will hit,
While possibly Durham and Schmidt
Along with Robb Nen
Will be healthy and then
They won’t just be Bonds and that’s it....
Meanwhile Bonds hit No. 661 this evening, to move into third place on the all-time home run list. Two home runs in two days, both splash hits into San Francisco Bay.
8 April 04
First Game Scored this Season
The difference between scoring baseball and scoring cricket is the length of the job, but I always find myself tiring of scoring a baseball game early in the eighth inning. The Giants are playing San Diego in their new park, Petco Park (Bark Park, the Doghouse, etc.), which is getting its major league debut today.
Thirty years ago today, Hank Aaron beat Babe Ruth’s home run record with his 715th long ball. He was in Atlanta today, enjoying pre-game festivities with his old club, the Atlanta Braves.
Numenius is kindly finishing up scoring this game for me. The Giants are losing 1-0. Barry Bonds had the chance to tie Willie Mays’ home run record. No luck so far….
5 April 04
Season Underway
This notion of having a couple of regular season games in the week before everyone else gets started is pretty silly, but the regular baseball season is finally underway for good. Already there’s excitement. The Detroit Tigers, the biggest underdog team in all of baseball, given their performance last year, opened their season by shutting out the Toronto Blue Jays 7-0. And the San Francisco Giants won in familiar fashion. Down 4-1 in the eighth, Barry Bonds hit a three-run home run. The Giants scored another run in the ninth to win 5-4. In the game Barry Bonds went 3-for-3 with a walk.
One down, 161 to go.
30 March 04
Season Approaching
The regular baseball season opened today with a game played abroad in Japan. The Tampa Bay Devil Rays beat the New York Yankees 8-3. So for the moment the Yankees are in last place with a record of 0-1. Alas, I don’t think it’s safe to extrapolate this to the rest of the 162-game season, but we can enjoy the standings while they last. The Yankees and Devil Rays play another game tomorrow, and then the regular season begins in earnest next Monday.
Meanwhile, the Giants today acquired left-hander Wayne Franklin from the Milwaukee Brewers. Franklin is a pitcher we remember from Triple-A games. We have some friends who for some unknown reason loved to razz him when he came to pitch against the Sacramento River Cats: “What’s the mattuh with Franklin? He’s a BUM!” Now that he’s a Giant, we may just have to root for him.
25 February 04
The Execution Of A Baseball
An unfortunate baseball is being destroyed tomorrow in an attempt to relieve the Chicago Cubs of a curse. This would be the foul ball that a Cubs fan reached out for in Game 6 of last fall’s League Championship Series that would have been caught by the Cubs’ outfielder. The Florida Marlins then went on to win the game, and then go to the World Series. The ball was bought at auction by the owners of Harry Carey’s restaurant (named after a famous Cubs announcer) who immediately announced plans for its demise. The event will be televised nationally, and don’t expect any clemency.
But will they go on to win the World Series they’ve been waiting for since 1908?