Since Al Gore gave us the internet so many years back it has brought us many things.
Granted, I know that Al Gore did not invent the internet but who am I to burst the man
Category Archives: Ballparks
Where There
Conventional wisdom would say that this should be a column about the massive hammer that fell down Monday in Major League Baseball regarding the 12 players who were suspended for performance enhancing drug (PED) use.
After months of buildup, and names being leaked to the various media outlets, it finally became clear Monday who the accused were and what the penalties would be for their transgressions against baseball. Under the collective bargaining agreement the players were given penalties ranging from 50 game suspensions all the way to the granddaddy of all suspensions a 211 game one.
While the suspensions were a long time coming, and I agree that the game of baseball needs to be as free of cheaters as possible, the thought of giving the cheaters any more press really does not appeal to me.
One could go so far as to say that I have lost the passion for the PED story.
And as one of the players caught with their hand in the banned substance cookie jar plays through his appeals process it is clear that the start of at least one of current suspensions will drag out for the remainder of the season meaning that the PED story will not go away any time this season.
So while my passion for the PED story has left me, there was another story in the news from Monday involving an athlete getting injured while following his passion that caught my attention.
Photo R. Anderson
I am of course talking about three-time NASCAR Champion Tony
The Day That Separates the Contenders from the Pretenders
Today at 4 p.m. Eastern Time marks the Non-waiver Trade deadline for Major League Baseball.
This magic day is when teams that feel like they are missing one or two pieces to make a run deep into the playoffs make deals with teams that are nowhere near playoff level and want to shed expensive contracts and look towards the following season.
Often times a player is traded as a
Two Sides of Sportsmanship on Display This Week
Earlier this week the baseball world was rocked by the news that former National League MVP Ryan Braun basically lied repeatedly regarding his use of performance enhancing drugs. Braun was suspended for the rest of the year and people started wondering whether he could ever regain the respect of the Milwaukee Brewers fans when he does return next season.
Normally this type of admission would carry through for the entire week in the media as the sports world anxiously awaits news of the next stars to fall. But a funny thing happened Wednesday night to help restore one
Braun First Player to Face New Era of MLB Punishment
The other day it was announced that Ryan Braun of the Milwaukee Brewers agreed to a suspension that will last until the start of spring training next year.
By most accounts the suspension will be for 65 games since it is unlikely that the Brewers will make the postseason this year. Since he is suspended without pay it will cost him around $3.5 million in salary.
The suspension comes as a result of Braun being linked to the use of banned performance enhancing drugs, or PEDs and other suspension for several other players implicated in the probe
Pudge Takes His Place Among Texas Ranger Greats
This past Saturday in Arlington, Texas, Ivan “Pudge” Rodriquez became the 16th person to be inducted into the Texas Rangers Hall of Fame.
The induction ceremony occurred prior to the Rangers and the Orioles taking the field. And while the game itself clearly belonged to the Orioles, the pregame ceremony was about honoring Pudge for his time as a Ranger.
During a 21-year career that started in 1991 when he was only 19-years-old, Pudge was voted to the All-Star game 14 times. He was named the 1999 American League MVP and earned seven Silver Slugger Awards with six of those coming during his 13-year tenure with the Rangers.
Photo R. Anderson
While the bulk of Pudge’s career was spent in a Rangers’ uniform he played for the Marlins, Tigers, Yankees, Astros and Nationals before retiring at the start of the 2012 season.
While Saturday night was all about honoring his years with the Rangers, I tend to remember Pudge more as a member of the 2003 World Champion Florida Marlins squad as well as a member of the Astros in 2009.
It was during his brief time with the Astros that Pudge broke the record for most games caught. Fittingly enough Rodriguez surpassed Carlton Fisk’s record of 2,226 games caught during a game against the Rangers at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington allowing the Rangers’ fans to take part in Pudge’s record setting evening.
Shortly after breaking the record the Astros traded
We Knew They’d Be Bad, But This Bad?
With the Major League Baseball All-Star Game behind us, and about two and a half months of season ahead of us, this is the time that most prognosticators roll out their list of surprises and predictions for the rest of the season.
This allows them to pat themselves on the back on the things they got right, and remind us how fluid the game is and make new predictions for the ones that they got wrong.
Over the past few days I have read many such articles of predictions gone well and predictions that didn’t quite pan out at the midpoint of the season. While I made predictions at the start of the season I do not believe in a mid course correction. Instead we will see how they hold up at the end of the year.
As part of this yearly ritual of assessing the season at the halfway point the subject of which teams will be trading away players and which teams will be getting players also comes up.
Photo R. Anderson
July 31, is considered the main trade deadline and a flurry of activity usually occurs with teams far from contending dumping players and payroll to teams that still have a chance at playoff glory but may be missing a piece or two in that winning formula.
For the past few years the question of how many games over 100 will the Astros lose and how many players will they trade en route to that inevitably gets discussed in the local Houston media and with a third straight year of futility in progress the national media has been weighing in on the matter as well.
So everyone agrees that the Houston Astros and their lowest in baseball by a long shot payroll are not going to the playoffs in any way, shape, or form. In fact, by most estimates, it will be several years before the Astros can even think about such lofty goals.
But the baseball season is a long season and the Astros want to put fans in their ballpark since fans equal money and money keeps the lights on.
Baseball on the Silver Screen Offers Something for Everyone
Tomorrow, marks the DVD release of the movie 42 about Jackie Robinson breaking baseball’s color barrier and all of the issues that he faced as a result of that.
I have previously written about the movie and Jackie Robinson and will be adding the movie to my collection of baseball movies sometime this week.
The pending addition of another movie into my growing collection of films about baseball got me thinking about just how many films there are about baseball.
My baseball film collection is modest by most standards I would think but I am also highly particular about which movies get added to it. I am the same way about my collection of books about baseball believing firmly in the quality of quantity approach.
While I doubt that any one person could collect every single movie about baseball, nor do I think they should try, there are definitely movies that capture each element of the game and should be part of any collection of baseball movies.
Photo R. Anderson
Just taking into account the Kevin Costner Baseball trilogy one is exposed to the humor that comes from Bull Durham, the emotional Field of Dreams, and the tale of a pitcher holding on for one more perfect moment in For Love of the Game.
Personally I would love to see Kevin Costner take on another baseball role as a manager or some other area where a former player struggles with life once the fans stop cheering their name. But it appears that wish will need to wait as Costner seems content with playing the earthly dad to Superman.
So moving away from the Kevin Costner movies about baseball there are the films with a certain fantasy element to them. For these movies one can usually look at the Walt Disney vault for films like Angels in the Outfield.
Of course making a movie about a team that they owned was sheer marketing genius by the Mouse House. But, then again you don’t get to become as big as the Walt Disney Company without being good at business.
While I never really bought into the fantasy elements of Angels in the Outfield, there was one Disney baseball movie deemed worthy to join my collection and that movie was the Rookie.
Knowing When to Call it a Career Doesn
History is full of stories of athletes riding off into the sunset at the top of their game and as Champions.
Football has given us the image of Ray Lewis, Michael Strahan and John Elway hoisting the Lombardi Trophy as Super Bowl Champions before calling it a career and head into life after football.
In baseball Tony LaRussa managed the St. Louis Cardinals to a World Series title in his final game as a full-time manager.
In opera it was always known that the end of the performance was coming when the
Castro the Astro Named All-Star Cuz Someone Had to Be
Saturday night Major League Baseball announced the starters and reserves for this year’s All-Star Game.
With the exception of a final fan’s choice vote for each league, and some players to be named later by the managers, the rosters are pretty much set.
For the most part the rosters seem sound and despite the ill conceived notion of fan voting, the bulk of the players seem to have gotten on the team through merit.
Of course since the introduction of the “all teams have to be represented by at least one player rule” some of the reserve players would not be on the team were it not required for someone from their team to be there.
Photo R. Anderson
This brings us to Jason Castro, catcher for the Houston Astros. Castro was named to the All-Star game as the sole representative of the Astros.
To think that his level of play reaches the level of an All-Star leads one to have to make a quantum leap of reasoning.
Even given the notion that someone from the Astros has to be selected as an All-Star, Castro does not even lead any offensive categories on the team. Which means that he is not even the best of the worst team in baseball.
Castro ranks second in batting average behind Jose Altuve (last year’s Astros All-Star representative) and also ranks second on the team in runs scored and home runs.
Granted Castro had a “see I belong in the game” moment Saturday night when he hit a three-run home run against the Rangers as part of a shocking upset in Arlington but the case remains puzzling as to why he is heading to the All-Star game as a reserve catcher.
To be fair I have nothing against Jason Castro despite the Astros seeming to have a man crush on him since drafting him with the 10th pick of the 2008 draft and repeatedly shoving him down the throats of the fans despite the presence of better catchers on the roster.
While there have been some catchers through the years that have swung the bat well those are usually few and far between. And in the case of former Astros catcher turned second baseman Craig Biggio catchers that can hit are usually moved to other positions to prolong their careers. Had Craig Biggio remained a catcher it is very probable that he would not have had the long career that allowed him to obtain over 3,000 hits.
So to me the job of catcher first and foremost is that of a defensive player that works well with the pitchers and can throw runners out at second base. Through the years prior to Jason Castro arriving at the Astros there were a string of such players who while not known for consistently driving in runs they definitely minimized opposing teams scoring through their work behind the plate.
Photo R. Anderson
To me the best catcher to ever wear an Astros uniform was Ivan “Pudge” Rodriguez.
