Category Archives: Baseball

Cole Hamels covering up

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The always-vigilant Cole Hamels photo archivists at The Fightins tipped me off to this: Our man Hamels pitched Saturday with a band-aid on his chin to cover up a pimple.

The photo is itself not terribly embarrassing, but the context makes it embarrassing enough for the archive. So it has been added. I should note that I am myself quite vain and probably not above covering a zit with a band-aid if I were going to be on TV in front of millions of people, but for some reason no one seems eager to put me on TV in front of millions of people, so I can comfortably taunt Cole Hamels for his vanity in this situation.

Also, on an only vaguely related note: Due in small part to that vanity and in large part to a continuing effort to meet girls, I scored a part in the musical my senior year of high school. The first day of dress-rehearsals I had to wear makeup for the first time in my life and, as a longtime football bro, this made me feel more than a little bit self-conscious. Between rehearsals, I went out for food and got pulled over for rolling through a stop sign.

I’m normally pretty good at talking my way out of tickets: Suppress any punk-rock instincts, apologize profusely, ingratiate myself, the whole thing. In this case, though — being a self-conscious 18-year-old — all I could think about was how the cop would judge me for all the foundation and blush I assumed he would immediately notice, so as soon as he approached the window, I blurted, “I normally don’t wear this much makeup!”

$75 or something.

Vacation all I ever wanted

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Today is the last day of my vacation. I’m back in New York, but I’m fresh off a red-eye from Burbank and I have a lot of stuff to take care of before I head back to the office tomorrow. There will be more here about the week I just spent in California and some of the food I ate there, but for now allow some loosely collected thoughts while they’re on my mind, before I pass out:

– Dodger Stadium is gorgeous. I scored great seats to yesterday’s game a week ago on Stubhub with no idea I was in for a Jered Weaver-Clayton Kershaw matchup. The game was awesome; Kershaw threw a complete game and the Dodgers won on a walk-off double by Chris Gwynn. The park — the 28th big-league stadium I’ve been to — was equally impressive. My wife pointed out that it looks a little like something from the Jetsons, which makes sense: Both the Jetsons and Dodgers Stadium came out in 1962, trying to look futuristic. The stadium couples that retro charm with the natural beauty of the hills and mountains beyond center field.

I think I am biased toward the 60s and 70s era ballparks because I grew up watching games at Shea Stadium. But I hope Dodger Stadium and Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City last until they are recognized as classics. Their appeal may be more subtle than that of a Wrigley or Fenway, but they are great places to watch games.

– I believe people should be allowed to enjoy baseball however they want. But if you purport to be a Dodger fan and you were spending more time yesterday focused on a beachball than the game Kershaw was throwing, we probably don’t have much in common. Here’s your 23-year-old ace squaring off in a masterful pitcher’s duel with the best pitcher from across town, and for most of the game the loudest reactions from the crowd came when fans let beachballs drop to the levels below.

With two outs and the game tied 1-1 in the top of the ninth, Kershaw allowed a solo home run to Vernon Wells that put the Angels ahead. Still, after he closed out the inning, I shot up to applaud him, figuring any pitcher that completed nine innings of two-run ball with 11 strikeouts and no walks would inevitably earn a standing ovation from his home crowd. But alas. I was the only person standing in my section, and maybe the only one who even noticed Kershaw had thrown nine innings.

To the Dodger fans’ credit, the place rocked pretty hard in the bottom of the ninth when the home team staged its comeback victory.

– Driving around Northern California is a great way to end up with a bunch of Rancid and Primus songs in your head. Driving around Southern California is a great excuse to annoy your wife with a barrage of nonstop movie and television references.

– I made it to the World’s Nicest Taco Bell, in Pacifica. Words can’t really describe how nice that Taco Bell is. Here’s a photo of the view from its outdoor seating area, which doesn’t really do it justice at all:

Full speed ahead tomorrow, fully rested. Jose Reyes is still pretty great, huh?

Twitter Q&A-style thing

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I’m still elsewhere. Here are some questions from last week. If anything has massively impacted since the weekend, maybe some of my opinions have changed since I wrote this. Maybe not. Some grim questions:

I don’t know… fear? Guilt? Shame?

Seriously why do so many people ask about what food I’d want if I were on death row? Do you know something about me that I haven’t figured out yet? Why not ask what food I’d want if, I don’t know, a genie came out of this here Vitamin Water Zero bottle and offered me any sandwich in the world?

Off the top of my head, and working from a very small sample size, it’s probably the breaded steak sandwich from Ricobene’s. I’ve been thinking about it since I ate it. I might get it with bacon on it, though — even if that wasn’t an option and doesn’t seem to go with the sandwich. It’s hard to imagine my last sandwich not having bacon.

Are we talking my last meal ever all told and I’m eating it at Citi Field, or my last meal ever at Citi Field? Stupid 140-character limits make it difficult to specify, I know.

If it’s the former, I’d probably try to get there early enough to brave the Shake Shack lines without missing any of the game. I don’t know what scenario has me eating my last meal ever at Citi Field, but there are worse ways to go out than eating a Shackburger and watching a ballgame.

If it’s the latter, and I’m at the game knowing I will for whatever reason never be permitted to eat at Citi Field again but that I’ll still be able to eat elsewhere, I’d probably get the tacos. As far as I know they are still unavailable outside the park.

A few people have asked me this and I keep answering the same thing: No reason to pick between Daniel Murphy, Justin Turner and Ruben Tejada yet. Since Ike Davis and David Wright look like they’ll be out until at least the All-Star Break, there will be plenty of at-bats for all three potential second basemen before the team needs to make any decision. Obviously teams should work with the most evidence possible, and since all three — and especially Turner and Tejada — are still dealing in small samples, there’s no rush to name a favorite.

But that’s a cop out. If we’re saying for the sake of things that Tejada, Turner and Murphy maintain their current lines (as I write this, Tejada’s is .274/.352/.305, Turner’s is .279/.348/.388 and Murphy’s is .291/.346/.409), then I would hope the Mets go back to the Murphy/Turner platoon, with Tejada starting at shortstop in Triple-A.

Tejada has played well and is likely the best defender of the trio, but he’s also likely the weakest hitter and I’m not certain he would save enough runs with his glove to make up for the difference on offense. Plus Tejada appears the best in-house option to replace Jose Reyes if he leaves via free agency or trade, so if the Mets are looking down the road a bit — even if they hope to sign Reyes — it can’t hurt to have Tejada racking up reps at shortstop.

Murphy could get the bulk of the starts against right-handers, with Turner starting against lefties and, if Terry Collins is looking to get him some at-bats, when groundball heavy pitchers like Jon Niese and R.A. Dickey are on the mound.

Moneyball reimagined

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As you may know, the trailer for the forthcoming Moneyball movie hit the Internet last week. It looks, well, kind of terrible. Here it is:

If you’ve read this site with some regularity, you might know I prefer movies in which things explode. There are precisely zero explosions in the trailer for Moneyball, unless you count Brad Pitt (as Billy Beane) upending his desk.

Anyway, it looks from the trailer like the Moneyball movie is going to be more about a ragtag group of unlikely heroes than exploiting market inefficiencies (which obviously makes a lot of sense, movie-wise). But the way I see it, if Michael Lewis dramatized the story a bit when he wrote it and now studio execs and screenwriters are taking liberties of their own, why not really push it?

Here are versions of the Moneyball movie I would more likely enjoy:

– Action: Jason Statham stars as a rogue general manager who probes too deeply into baseball’s numbers and discovers something he wasn’t supposed to know. Now 29 other GMs will stop at nothing to destroy him, unless he takes care of them first. Vengeance is the new market inefficiency. Features scene of Statham as Billy Beane and sexy spreadsheet vixen Megan Fox diving from exploding stadium.

– Sabromance: Billy Beane (Paul Rudd) has everything: Smarts, good looks, a great family, and a dream job in baseball. But when tough times force him to make some unpopular decisions at work, he finds out that what he needs most is a loyal friend. A story of two men who learn that stripping baseball of its soul just might save their own. Some gross-out manboob humor. With Jonah Hill as Paul DePodesta.

– Musical: The stuffed-shirt commissioner of baseball has banned dancing, but a young hotshot GM is ready to change all that. Starring Matthew Morrison from Glee.

– Film Noir: I can’t figure out how Moneyball might be remade as a film noir, but I bet it’d be sweet. You know I’m on vacation, right?

– Any movie with Terry Crews: We don’t spend nearly enough time discussing how great Terry Crews is. I watched about a half hour of the movie White Chicks the other night because it had Terry Crews in it. Guy steals every scene he has ever been in.

Long Island Mets?

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The owners of the Long Island Ducks and the New York Mets have pitched competing proposals to build a minor-league baseball field in Nassau County.

– Robert Brodsky, Newsday.

Oh, man. I should mention for those who don’t know that I grew up about ten minutes south of Mitchel Field, the proposed site of this Minor League baseball field. I worked close by at Nassau Community College for a while, and I used to go to the batting cages at Eisenhower Park all the time. It’s well within my frame of reference, I guess I’m saying.

And it’d be sweet to have Mets prospects playing full-season ball someplace so accessible. I don’t know if it makes any sense economically, and I imagine there might be plenty of pissed-off taxpayers if the proposal goes through. Plus the article makes the Mets’ proposal sound more like a last-minute counter to the Ducks’ than anything else.

But it’s fun to think about. The South Atlantic League now stretches as far north as Lakewood, New Jersey, so I suppose it’s possible the Mets could try to convince that league to let them move a club to Long Island. That club’s road trips would be brutal, though.

It seems like a Double-A Eastern League team would make more sense logistically, since the Eastern League has teams in Connecticut, New Jersey, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania. The Mets have been affiliated with Binghamton since 1991.

Also: Full-season Minor League clubs start playing in early April, and this stadium would be practically next door to Nassau Coliseum. If the Islanders were ever to advance deep into the NHL Playoffs, any night both clubs were home the traffic would be unreal. But then… well, easy punchline.

I’m on vacation. I meant to have more cued up for this week before I left, but time did that pesky thing it often does. There will be posts all week, but it will be slow. I’ll be back in a week, rested and (I hope) with several new sandwich experiences to share.

Oof

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Man, that sucked.

I think I’d put that loss more on Lucas Duda and Francisco Rodriguez than I would on D.J. Carrasco, even if Carrasco’s the obvious goat for balking in the winning run. I haven’t seen it yet, but I imagine on some corner of the Internet someone’s getting all worked up about Carrasco’s lack of focus or discipline or something, but I don’t think that’s what that was. Just a weird fluky hiccup. These things happen.

“Only to the Mets,” you’ll say, but the graphic on the MLB Network this morning showed five other walk-off balks that have happened in the past few years, one of which I happened to witness in person. It’s a rough way to lose a game, especially when your team fought back from down four runs early in the game and held the lead going into the ninth with the closer on the mound.

No segue: You might have noticed things have slowed down here a bit the past couple of days. I’m taking next week off, so I’m scrambling to tie up some loose ends around the office.

I’m hoping to spend parts of today and tomorrow cuing up some posts that will roll out next week while I’m gone, but I could use your help. Have you stumbled upon anything awesome on the Internet lately? Anything thought provoking that isn’t particularly timely? Any outrageously silly video? Sent it my way, via email or the contact box above.