It’s football season at US Cellular. Lethargy has settled in. The scent of Jim Thome’s butch wax has long since dissipated from the locker room. Mark Buehrle’s post-perfect-game season lay in perfect ruins. Scott Linebrink is learning how to look for jobs on Craigslist, Jose Contreras has been pawned off on mountain rustics, the search for Bartolo Colon has been called off, and Bobby Jenks has been shut down for the year after injury to his calf. 2009 is so over, I can’t even bring myself to extract the Bobby / veal joke from the above.
The veteran is trying to survive, trying to show that he’s not washed up at 35. And realistically, he now knows that this is his last homestand on the team he won a World Series with.
“I’m not concerned about that,” Dye said about his fate now being all but sealed. “Whatever happens is going to happen. At this point you just want to try and get into a somewhat of a little bit of a groove before the season is over. Go into the offseason and see what happens.
“I’ve never struggled like this before, never had a whole half that has been nothing. Over the course of a career, I think that’s pretty good. The five years I’ve been here I’ve had five pretty good years, and it just so happened that I struggled here at the end, we were fighting to get into the playoffs, and it’s just the way it is.”
The struggling Dye was out of the starting lineup on Tuesday, unable to change the .168 second half he’s had with just five homers and 19 RBI. A second half he has no explanation for.
“I have no clue,” Dye said. “I put in the work and sometimes it doesn’t work out. There’s nothing wrong with the mechanics. When you struggle, the pitches you should hit you foul off. The pitches you take normally when you feel good they’re balls, they’re strikes now. When you struggle everything goes wrong. This second half it just didn’t happen.”
Somewhere in the bowels of University of Chicago, – perhaps down the hallway from where Milton Friedman’s skull is ritually bathed in the blood of infants – Nate Silver and the PECOTA crew are getting an early jump sharpening their knives for the inevitable prediction of doom for the 2010 Pale Hose. Last half of ‘09 notwithstanding, I bet a Dyeless lineup only justifies the doomsaying, if Alex Rios at this years’s numbers is supposed to pick up the slack.
For the second time in as many Augusts, the spectacle of RHP Jose Contreras visiting the first base area has failed to inspire. Last season, it was a race to the bag (helped not a bit by the feckless, motionless Nick Swisher at 1B) that caused Contreras’ achilles to snap, ending his season and keeping the Twins very much in contention into the post-season.
Monday, Contreras’s chug down the line landed him not on a stretcher, but the bullpen. After loading the bases in the 3rd by beaning Youklis with 2 outs, Contreras got Big Papi to issue a weak grounder down the line. Normally cause for celebration, Jose instead bobbled it, allowing Alex Gonzales to score, kicking off a 6 unearned run inning. Chisox blown opportunities to answer were marked by Carlos Quentin and Alex Rios popups. By evening’s end, Contreras would be demoted to the pen and the White Sox would lead the AL in unearned runs with 63. The Tigers victory in Anaheim put the Pale Hose 3.5 games back, making Tuesday’s tilt if not a must-win, something close to it.
Yesterday came the hammer blow. More blown scoring opportunities laced Sweaty Freddy Garcia’s decent 6 1/3 inning effort before it was handed to the resolutely terrible Scott Linebrink (7.73 since ASB), causing anguished foreheads to meet beer-moistened bar tops from Greektown to Joliet. Ass long as he’s durr, I how to bring him out, explained Ozzie after it was too late. Linebrink gave up a Jason Bay monster-clearing bomb and RBI hits to Ellsbury and Martinez to put the game and probably the division out of reach for good.
The division because Detroit’s mediocrity took a Southern California holiday in their Jarrod Washburn-led 5-3 win, putting the Pale Hose back 4.5 games and making Sox fans wonder why Detroit’s west coast import arm wasn’t languishing in AAA like ours was. Did Jake Peavy answer this question by stopping a line drive with his throwing elbow in his third rehab start in Charlotte? Will we have all winter to think about Clayton Richard, for whom the troubled Cy Young winner was traded – and his record of 4-0 since that deal?
Q: When a guy who has been caught 9 times with 18 steals is on third with one out and a lefty DH is up in the tenth inning of a 0-0 ballgame, what is he doing taking a lead of any length?
a) Following 3B coach Jeff Cox’s sterling advice
b) desperately avoiding Adrian Beltre’s after-shave
(On behalf of the blogging b-team at CSTB, let me extend our deepest sorrows for the terrible loss of GC’s Austin home last night. Be it out of some esoteric notion of anguish management, or just a desperate attempt to bottle up all emotion, let me observe that with last night’s fire, we may add one more uncanny similarity between the life of Mr.Cosloy and the main character in the new HBO series “Hung”. May GC’s path away from disaster be more straightforward.)
Alex Rios: Can You Play Four Fielders?
When a Seattle cop wrote White Sox GM Kenny Williams a $56 ticket outside of Safeco field Monday night, it wasn’t for reckless acquisition of outfielders, which goes to show that Chicago cops aren’t the only ones who turn a blind eye to injustice. Williams, who had just hours prior picked up Toronto RF Alex Rios on waivers was cited instead for jaywalking. This despite his throwing a scare into incumbent Sox RF Jermaine Dye and causing not a little scratching of black-capped scalps back home. The Tribune’s Mark Gonzales:
In acquiring Alex Rios, the White Sox acquired a right fielder who is seven years younger than Dye — who can become a free agent — and signed through 2014.
“It’s exciting, confusing,” said Dye, who shares a $12 million mutual option with the Sox for 2010 with a $1 million buyout.
Dye welcomes the arrival of Rios in the Sox’s quest to push toward a playoff berth. But at the same time, he wonders if the Sox, who have committed $62.7 million to nine players for 2010 and took on $115.7 million in salaries for Jake Peavy and Rios in the last 11 days, will keep him in their plans.
“You got a bunch of guys that are making a ton of money that are going to be free agents, so maybe that’s something that will help out with distributing some of the money that they just brought on,” Dye said Monday. “I hope it doesn’t. I’ve always wanted to finish my career here.”
Dye, 35, is third among AL players with 58 homers since 2008. He could move to first or serve as the DH in 2010, which also is the final year of Paul Konerko’s contract.
Sitting JD in the AL Central campaign is unimaginable, and Scott Podsednik has been golden all year, which leaves non-superstar Carlos Quentin as the odd man out in left. That almost certainly puts Pods in left and Rios in center with questionable wheels – also known as the very recepie that cost the Sox enough games last season to force a tiebreaker. Back then, the creaking sounds in CF came from the legs of Ken Griffey, Jr., a deal that Sox faithful accepted as just one more item checked off of Kenny’s “bucket list”. But this time around, the dollars are real, long-term and with the arrival of Jake Peavy add up to (way) more than what the Sox pocketed by dealing Javy Vazquez.
Can a habitual jaywalker avoid getting run over by Detroit wheels?
So you’re the defending champs of the AL Central. The defending pennant-holders ended your postseason bid, and they’re in town for a four-game home stand.
In all of baseball, the Rays are first in walks, third in OBP and third in runs scored. Nonetheless, you take two out of the first three games against them, and if not for the rare misstep of your beloved mayonnaise-stained closer, you would have swept those.
The early season was grim. You’ve only been over .500 for a couple of weeks. Your ace is coming up for the 4th and final game of the series. If you win, and the Mariners beat the Tigers, you’re tied for the division lead for the first time since May 1st.
Today’s home plate ump, Eric Cooper, is the one who was on plate duty in April 2007, the last time Mark Buehrle threw a 2-hour 3-minute no-no against Texas.
Do you:
a) put the same Buehrle/Pierzynski battery out there that took you to the World Series in 2005?
b) send your backup receiver Ramon Castro to catch his first Mark Buehrle game?
You probably answered a). See, that’s why you’re you and Ozzie Guillen is Ozzie Guillen. You might not have let the 18th perfect game in MLB history happen.
The Josh Fields grand slam in the 2nd off a Scott Kazimir (L 4-6 6IP, 5H, 5ER, 3BB 5K) fastball only hinted to the 28,036 weekday attendance just what lay in store.
The Buehrle / Castro axis kept fastballs largely off the menu, presenting a baroque assortment of sliders, changes and hooks that had Bartlett, Upton, and Kapler so off-balance they were one-handedly hacking at whatever they could see by the 7th. Carl Crawford, .480 lifetime against Buehrle (W, 11-3, 9IP, 0H, 6K, 0BB) was pitched into contact three times with changes following sliders – all for naught. If they weren’t weak dribblers or line shots right to Beckham, they were safely in Castro’s glove batter after batter.
The gutsy performance produced plenty of contact but not a single tough play- until the 9th inning.
Ozzie pulled Scott Podsednik for Dewayne Wise in center, and Buehrle faced Gabe Kapler. Rays skipper Joe Maddon never put on the bunt. Kapler fouled off a couple before he sent a dead inside heater deep to left center.
28,036 hearts stopped. One heart didn’t.
Wise got on his fresh legs and charged for the wall. He was taxed. His neck was craned. But had the look and he had the jump. At the Billy Pierce portrait the backup fielder ran out of ballpark at full stride. Kapler’s hit was headed over the yellow line. Gravity would no longer do.
The leap and stretch was the culmination of a career, and a callback of sorts. Wise had been on duty for baseball’s last perfect game, Randy Johnson’s 2004 outing in Atlanta, when Wise had been a Brave. The timing was impeccable. Kapler’s bomb disappeared in Wise’s mitt as the defenseman sailed into the wall at full speed. The collision and the landing jarred the ball loose, and Wise juggled it as he tumbled to the ground. And held it.
Hawk Harrelson’s TV booth screams were reportedly so loud as to be audible through the next-door radio booth microphones. Indeed, the folksy announcer was stunned right into a rare stretch of plain, comprehensible English, proclaiming the catch “One of the greatest I have ever seen in fifty years of this game.”
A swinging punchout of Michael Hernandez and a 6-3 dribbler from Jason Bartlett sealed the deal. Mark Buehrle had handed in the first White Sox perfect game since Charles Robinson in 1922 — and his second 2-hour 3-minute no hitter in three seasons.
A 3-run shot by Paul Konerko behind Gavin Floyd’s seven solid frames (W, 8-6, 7 IP 3H 7K 2BB 3) took a David Price floater to left in the third, ending the Sox offense for the evening before a sold-out Monday night at the Cell. The return of Carlos Quentin (1 for 4) from an May foot injury demonstrated the intense outfielder’s preference for camping on the plate — Q is still tied for third in AL in HBP despite being out for two months – He still constantly fouls straight back and will need a better look to resume contributing.
AJ Pierzynski gunned down two runners and Scotty Podsednik went 3 for 3, sporting a remarkably refined stroke at the plate that promises traction in the Sox’s campaign to be the kings of a very small AL Central hill. The Sox are a single game behind the idle Tigers and 4 over .500 at 48-44.
When your starter allows 11 runs, it’s usually safe to assume 1) the phone line to the bullpen has fallen victim to a backhoe and 2) parking lot traffic won’t be at its peak at the 9th inning. But if history’s taught us anything, it’s that when the Twins are involved, the improbable outcome can never be ruled out. Despite A’s starter Gio Gonzales’ 2.2 inauspicious innings and 11 ERs, Oakland mounted the greatest comeback in their history to defeat Burl Ives and company 14-13. The 27-run 39-hit extravaganza ended on a bang-bang play in the 9th. A Michael Wuertz wild pitch got past Kurt Suzuki who grabbed it on a carom and got it back to Wuertz at the plate to tag out an incredulous Michael Cuddyer and drop the Twins to 2.5 back in the division. Reports of a low moaning sound resuming from former Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman’s home could not be confirmed at press time.
Typically, South Side Polish parades clear the street before proceeding, but Grand Marshal AJ Pierzynski would have none of it yesterday after Gordon Beckham’s walk-off single. The delirious receiver spearheaded a celebratory procession to second base that put the young infielder on his heels. In his moment the kid showed less resolve than the groom at the wedding I was attending, but to be fair, the betrothed did not have to contend with the vision of a hulking, armored Pole bearing down at full speed.
But enough about the bridesmaids. As tends to happen with the Crosstown tilts, Game 2, Electric Boogaloo was a wild affair of eight lead changes, questionable defense, and excitement aplenty. Mark Buehrle (5.2 IP 6H 5R 3BB 3K) kept a lid on the Cubs until Beckham’s throwing error in the 3rd put Andres Blacno in scoring position, followed by another bad throw by Alexei Ramirez that allowed Bradley to reach. A Buehrle balk in the 5th set up the tying run to come in on a Soriano sac fly.
But the bottom of the frame had Ryan Dempster (5IP 8H 5R 3BB 2K) heading for the showers after giving up a bomb to Scott Podsednik, a sigle to Ramirez, a walk to Thome, hitting Konerko and a 2-run single to AJ.
The North Siders came right back with their own 3-run inning in the 6th, ending Buehrle’s day with a walk and a single, promoting Ozzie to call upon DJ Carrasco, who promptly gave up a two-run double to Soriano, who scored on the subsequent single by Theriot.
To answer yet again, Dewayne Wise stretched out a triple when he sent an errant Aaron Heilman heater over Fukudome’s head, scoring on one of Podsednik’s 4-for-5 PAs and tying it back up. As I traveled to Hickory Hills in solid traffic on the Stevenson, I wondered if these extraordinary proceedings had mustered any excitement from Joe Buck. I glumly read the Bush ‘04 bumper stcker in front of me, knowing I would never know.
One more run apeiece in the 8th and it was time to head to the banquet hall. So I missed Beckham’s single, I missed the celebration, and I missed the happy outcome of Bobby Jenks (W 2-2) second win. However, in his honor, I did eat an extra piece of chicken.
Proving that the shortest distance between two run totals is Scott Linebrink, Ozzie Guillen frittered away a 4-run lead in the 8th, entrusting the top-notch performance of Gavin Floyd (7IP 4H 1ER 3BB 2K) to the above- mentioned righty reliever instead of the southpaw Matt Thornton. Tellingly, camera angles into the Sox dugout showed Pitching coach Don Cooper visibly sweating at the prospect of Liney coming in to make it a save situation. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine Thornton (who was possibly preoccupied with Wrigley bullpen rat abatement) serving dead fastballs into the stands at quite the same clip as his colleague, nor getting as far behind in the count against the sleepy Cubs bats.
Back to back bombs to Derreck Lee and Geovany Soto followed a Chris Getz bad-hop error, erased the Sox lead, sent Linebrink to the showers and set up a Soriano floater to drive in Reed Johnson for the win, evening the Crosstown record to 34-34.
From the first inning’s Alexei Ramirez homer to left to the Bobby Jenks vs. Milton Bradley faceoff in the 9th that left Mr. Absent-Minded twisting on the end of a 1-2 hook, Game “2″ (Game 1 being rained out an rescheduled for September 10th) of Crosstown ‘09 was a sight to behold.
Unfortunately, I could personally behold only two innings of it due to work constraints. I did manage to check in to see Big Bobby’s aforementioned punchout of Bradley and could not help but smile as Cub Nation glumly streamed for the exits with one out, down a mere three runs with the heart of their order coming up. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Bobby displace that many people at one time outside an Old Country Buffet.
In stark contrast to the sad faces in the lanes of the northbound Edens expressway, Ozzie’s chipper demeanor remained undented all day, starting with an encounter with a Wrigley t-shirt vendor. Having had many months to think of a replacement for last year’s Humanitas award-winning “Horry Kow” Fukudome paean, Cub Nation idly looked out the bay window of its Lake Forest manse and noticed that lawn mowers have nameless, Ozzie-like people attached to them. (I’ve got some friends in merchandising, so if next year anybody wants to run with my Cubbie-blue Klan hood, complete with lil’ red “C” on the front, drop me a line.)
Guillen cheerfully purchased a shirt, and then cheerfully pounded Ryan Dempster (L, 4-4, 6IP 4H 3R, 6BB 4K) with a smallball assault while Johnny Danks turned in a magnificent no-walks 9K outing (W, 5-5, 7IP, 5H 1R, 9K 0BB), getting out of jams in the 3rd and 4th.
In light of the Twins’ 3B Joe Crede’s recent auditory confirmation that four-legged vermin do in fact infest Wrigley Field, Ozzie Guillen’s personal Wrigley ritual for Tuesday’s Sox-Cubs tilt suggests that Cub Nation’s Department Of Health and Human Services isn’t faring very well as the team completes its sale.
“I puke every time I go there. I’m just being honest.
“If the Cubs fans don’t like the way I talk about Wrigley Field … I don’t say anything about their fans, but Wrigley Field? They have to respect my opinion because that’s the way I feel. A lot of great people are working there, the clubhouse people working there – I wish they had a better clubhouse, but besides that, it’s exciting when the game starts. Of course it’s exciting because that’s one of the best, it’s always crowded. But besides that, it’s terrible.’’
In which the Sun-Times’s sporting scribe joins the Tribune’s John Kass on the list of Chicago journos most likely to find their cars in a city auto pound by way of tweaking the 11th Ward Democratic organization’s most august personage, Richard Daley II, into shades of purple.
The politics of pay-for-play and skimming and old-fashioned, suspender-snapping, cigar-chomping, big-bellied ”Where’s mine?” clout is so vibrant and alive and grotesquely arrogant here in Chicago that it is very nearly a breathing, slime-dripping creature worthy of a Star Wars-style nuclear assault.
There there must be ramifications for being blatantly corrupt and/or stupid.
There must be.
Put on a sporting display for the world in 2016?
No.
Sorry, all you business and political big shots who are trying to ram this Olympics-are-good-for-you thing down the citizens’ throats.
You blew it.
You didn’t change your appetites, your sloth, your animal dumbness.
Why, just a month ago, Michael Scott, the president of the Chicago Public Schools board, sent an e-mail to all the city’s school principals telling them to raise the Chicago 2016 Olympic flag and start promoting Mayor Daley’s pet project.
Think that’s unbiased?
Think there might not be, uh, ”problems” for reluctant or skeptical principals?
…
I myself will be expecting some kind of tax auditing or car-booting or camera-surveillance for my rebellious views, or, who knows — leg-breakers? — to help me ”understand” the benefits of the Games to our town.
Mayor Daley’s Chicago regime is a joke that plays like an old whoopee cushion.
We won’t even bring up the fact former governor ”Hot Rod” Blagojevich was once an instrumental part of Chicago’s 2016 Games bid. If there was more clown greasepaint that his family could put on, it would need a face the size of a billboard to do it.
Former Illinois first lady Patti Blagojevich is on a reality TV show — because her gerbil-cheeked, heavily-indicted husband was forbidden by the law to be on it — eating bugs and being humiliated and semi-tortured for cash.
No stranger to the cigar-smoke-filled backroom himself, Telander’s 1994 thoughts on the unsustainability of the Gin Blossoms, Nirvana and Darryl Strawberry can be found here.
The stepped-up offerings of ascendant bullpen refugee LHP Clayton Richard (W, 2-0 7IP 6H 2ER 7K 1BB) kept the Royals runless until the 7th, making good use of Mark Buehrle-like pacing and agressive 3-2 curveballs. While exactly the kind of stuff needed to plug the Contreras-sized hole in the rotation, much of it was wasted by the 6th, as the Sox had piled up an 11-0 lead.
Uncharacteristically, the run of runs had less to do with power than manufacture. Beyond a Jermaine Dye solo shot in the first, no homers figured in the deluge and the dismal RISP effectivenes of the Sox got a serious boost with a string of base hits, adding up to 17 before the night was up. RHP Brian Bannister (L, 4-2, 5IP, 9H, 7R 4K 1BB) lasted long enough to fall behind by 6, only to bring out the hapless Sidney Ponson, whose 1/3 inning produced 4 earned runs by way of singles and doubles to Konerko, Anderson, Ramirez and Fields. Kyle Farnsworth gave up two more before Dewayne Wise was lulled to sleep by the lack of home runs, forgot the outs and was run down.
Following the blowout, Kenny Williams announced a strange deal with the Mets, trading mild-throwing, walk-prone RHP reliever Lance Broadway (16IP, 19H 10R, 1.75 WHIP) for backup C Ramon Castro and $2 Mil in cash, leaving backup catcher Corky Miller designated for assignment. Life goes on, Corky, life goes on. I’ll leave it to GC to plot what role Broadway will fill at Death Valley East, but I’ll guess that Castro will do three things for the Sox: 1) ruin the week of behemoth bridesmaid Birmingam C Tyler Flowers 2) gun down about as many runners as AJ and Miller and 3) momentarily confuse and frighten Alexei Ramirez with his last name.
CSTB Contributors: At this point, any posts added to CSTB may be temporarily lost in the coming transition across the following day (April 21-22). This is the situation until further notice.
Go ahead and add them, but keep safety (local) copies of text and images on hand. The next 24-36 hours might not be the right time to unveil your magnum opus without a backup.
The migration is going real well, I’m just waiting on the domain name changeover or the original server being shut off, whichever comes first.
CSTB will be undergoing maintenance / server migration today, so site availability will be sporadic. If all goes well, this will not last more than a period of hours as all changes shake out in the wash.
Cross fingers, – or if you’re Octavio Dotel, maybe you should ask for another hug from the President for good luck.
These pale blue pages don’t serve their half-dozen readers by magic, you know. No, there’s a whole latticework of software and hardware dedicated to properly spraying the bits into your eyeholes, and sometimes, well, software gets old and it needs to be fixed.
Today, I upgraded CSTB to the modern version of Wordpress (2.7.1) in order to prepare for its coming migration. Contributors, be aware of the new interface and enjoy the far less sucky experience.
So far I see only one glitch: the posts are being divided by day on the front page, which I bet I can make go away pretty quick – at least as quick as I made Schwartz’s posts go away. Kidding.
Throw a comment up here if you spot anything else weird.
Today on 35th Street has been brought to you by the number 4.
4 is the number of White Sox opening days Jim Thome has hit a homer, breaking his own team record today when he sent an errant Kyle Farnsworth heater into center field to take the lead 4-2 in the 8th. Some, observing 2009’s first Thome-trot around the bases likened his form to a guy moving a refrigerator by himself. Others, a couch. I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that power may play a role in the Chisox season.
4 is the number of strikeouts reliever Octavio Dotel delivered in the 7th inning. The customary three Ks weren’t enough since Pierzinski’s dropped third strike allowed Olivo to reach. Nonetheless, OD persevered against Aviles mere seconds later. The binary hurler’s magnificent inning will need to be cherished like a family snapshot when he senselessly gives up his next two jacks, which is penciled in for…oh, probably Friday.
4 is the number of times Dewayne Wise failed to reach, suggesting that as a leadoff hitter, he makes a pretty good center fielder. Also, Carlos Quentin went Q for 4. While no panic buttons are yet being pressed about Wise, Ozzie’s intent to platoon the leadoff slot with Brian Anderson already looked pretty grim. More outings like this hopefully means Alexei Ramirez in the leadoff spot, protecting those 100+ extra at-bats from rampant whiffery.
And 4 is the number of opening days since the last Chicago baseball championship. Three ringless seasons – it’s a shame really. What if, one day, Chicago got a second ball club to pitch in with the work hunting down the laurels? Well, a guy can dream.
It’s notable enough that Mark Cowley’s piece on the enigmatic Carlos Quentin in today’s Sun-Times features numerous quotes from the normally tight-lipped Jermaine Dye. After all, if you collected the combined published utterances of the World Series MVP and laid them end to end, you’d barely get halfway across 35th Street. Outside of yelling at Orlando Cabrera for SB attempts on Dye’s 3-1 counts, it’s tough to picture JD jawing it up in the dugout – or anywhere – last year.
So how much of a cipher must Carlos Quentin be for Jermaine Dye to blow half his 2009 season quotes on Q’s odd behavior? Apparently, they teach cipherin’ at Stanford:
The latest hope resides on the South Side. He is 26 years old and has GQ looks, a Stanford education and a lethal bat.
Yes, White Sox outfielder Carlos Quentin is the next big thing.
One problem: He wants nothing to do with it.
Quentin is by no means gruff with the media or teammates. He has friends on the team — outfielder Brian Anderson and third baseman Josh Fields, to name a few. But to do a story about Quentin, well, shoot up the Novocain and start pulling. There’s a lot of ”reaching potential” and ‘’striving to get better” talk.
As far as getting beyond that and understanding the man? Good luck.
”Uh, I’m trying to do it in one word,” fellow outfielder Jermaine Dye said when asked to describe Quentin. ”I would say a great guy who can be strange and sometimes doesn’t know how to control his emotions. But he’s a great player, no doubt. He’s had success now, and he wants to build off of it, wants to do more. But strange. He’s a strange guy. ‘Strange’ is the word.”
With the hours he spends in the batting cage and doing dry swings, Quentin seems to be chasing perfection in a game where perfection is impossible to achieve. Once he begins his routine of swings, forget about talking to him. That goes for everyone.
”He’s extremely, extremely normal, but when it comes to baseball, he’s really — how can I describe it? — he’s really anal about giving himself the best chance possible to compete,” Anderson said. ”He doesn’t like feeling vulnerable at anything. He’s the type of guy that goes 3-for-4 with a home run and two doubles, but a guy jammed him on the last at-bat, so he’ll go in the batting cage and work on that pitch. It’s a pride thing with him, which is good.”
(Above: Nate Silver and crew take a break after shipping Baseball Prospectus ‘09)
I’m the last one to doubt the statistical prowess of Nate Silver. To run the table as he did predicting the ‘08 presidential election results really says volumes about his proven ability to accurately predict a future by examining the past. What’s more, I want to point out how much I personally appreciate the decision he made to share his number-crunching gifts with the worlds of politics and baseball, thereby depriving the Wall Street pig-pen of one more enabler.
All that said, it seems there’s a ghost in the machine. Silver’s Baseball Prospectus has published its 2009 edition, and its PECOTA team forecasts call for rain on the South Side once again. The system has has sold short the Sox three out of the last four seasons, but this year is truly inexplicable. PECOTA puts the division champ White Sox dead last in an AL Central that just hasn’t improved appreciably.
Silver knows it’s been tougher to figure out the White Sox than a presidential election. PECOTA badly missed predicting the 2005 World Champs, forecasting a mere 80 wins. Next, BP shorted the Sox in ‘06 before nailing their performance in ‘07 – a year everthing went horribly wrong.
Last season, the Sox again whipped PECOTA’s projections and contributed significantly to the system’s first historical increase in average error predicting team wins. On average, PECOTA now blows its forecasts by an averge of 8.5 wins, ending a steady trend toward increasing accuracy with a rude blemish.
“Everybody pick us for theer o four so I tink we doin pooty goo” offered Ozzie on last year’s expectations. Pooty goo is right. The Sox came out on top despite the loss of Scott Linebrink, the dismal months of Paul Konerko and Ken Griffey PAs, the cracked wrist and failed MVP bid of Carlos Quentin, the achilles tear of Jose Contreras and the mental desertion of Javy Vazquez in September. To drag all that into the postseason was, yes, pooty goddamn goo. While the Sox can’t do worse than PECOTA predicts, what’s likely to happen in ‘09?
Going in, this spring looks worse for the Pale Hose than last year. The loss of Vazquez to Atlanta and Contreras for at least half the season has not been compensated. The dicey proposition to cast Bartolo Colon in the fourth slot and and allow a competition for fifth probably means trouble early on. It puts new pressure on Buehrle, Danks and Floyd to go deep and might lose the Sox quite a few games if the weeks drag on. Average outings become a luxury for the starters the team can ill afford as the bottom either heals or learns.
But last place? Quentin, Ramirez, Dye, Thome and Pierzynski are bats that more than easily match the local pitching. Konerko may decide to play a full season, you never know. Getz, Anderson, Viciedo – the kids are (probably) alright.
Last place? Who are these giants in the AL Central, anyway?
Cleveland? I wouldn’t want to face Carl Pavano or Kerry Wood in a sulking contest, but this team is at least one CC Sabbathia short of where it was last spring, and Sizemore’s average is deflating faster than the Dow Jones. I don’t see the threat.
Detroit? Sure, Jim Leyland can croon like Sam Cooke when he’s taking the Motown studio tour, but where’s his pitching? A healthy Zumaya and a restored Verlander is only the beginning of what they’re going to need to dominate.
The Royals? The White Sox are supposed to finish behind the Royals? Not unless they’ve cloned Zack Greinke, recalled Mark Grudzielanek and given Esteban German the same surgery they gave Charlie Gordon in Flowers For Algernon.
Minnesota? Okay, Joe Crede will help –but probably only for the two months his repaired back will survive him flinging himself onto the Metrodome concrete. Mauer’s alarmingly unhealthy, which means nobody setting the table for Morneau, which means lots of pressure on an underwhelming rotation that unfortunately for them, is still forced to play away games.
The AL Central will probably come down to 5 or 6 games difference between first and fourth place. Truth be told, the Tigers are probably the team with the most pent-up demand for wins and I see them putting in a far better effort this year. Sox win 88, take the division, and Clint Eastwood takes Best Director in 2010 for The Human Factor. Book it.
As excerpted in this week’s Sports Illustrated, former Los Angeles California Angels Of Anaheim California farmhand Matt McCarthy’s book “Odd Man Out” benefits from the acuity of its Yale-educated author in at least equal measure to the work of its unattributed editor. Of most interest in the teaser is McCarthy’s take on a younger, brasher, more contemptuous Bobby Jenks, then still seasons away from being picked up on waivers for $20,000 and going on to throw the final out for the White Sox in Chicago’s first World Series championship in 87 years.
The heavy closer’s heavy reputation for boozing and bridling under managerial authorty had built early in his days at Mesa – but when it came to sauce, it appears Bobby’s taste didn’t run to juice. At the height of the steroid era, Angels fastballer Derrick Turnbow, who a year and a half later would become the first MLB player publicly identified as having tested positive for the banned steroid 19-norandrosterone, overheard Jenks grousing to McCarthy in 2001:
“What are you reading about?” I asked.
“Me,” he said flatly. “Everybody’s got something to f—–g say about Bobby Jenks. One day I’m an alcoholic; the next day I’m the second coming of Christ.” I laughed awkwardly, trying to think of how I would describe him. “I’m a damn bargain is what I am,” he continued as he rolled onto his stomach. “Hundred-and-seventy-five-thousand dollars for a guy with my s–t?
“And what do they do? They send me to this hellhole with guys who don’t belong in pro ball.” It wasn’t a stretch to imagine he was talking about guys like me.
“How many guys can throw a hundred miles an hour?” he asked me as he tossed the magazine on the floor.
“Probably a dozen,” I offered.
“How many guys on this planet can throw a ball a hundred miles an hour?” he said in a much louder voice as he sat up.
“I can think of one,” said a large man with shoulder-length brown hair as he sauntered into the room and calmly submerged himself in a vat of ice. It was Angels reliever Derrick Turnbow, in Mesa on a rehab assignment. A year earlier he had suffered a displaced fracture of the ulna while throwing one of his 100-mph fastballs.
“Now, I can’t say that I’ve ever seen you hit triple digits,” Bobby said playfully.
“Go to hell, Jenks,” Turnbow said…”Talk to me when you’ve pitched a game in the big leagues.”
For the next 15 minutes, we sat in silence, until Turnbow finished his ice bath and left the room. “They always said [Turnbow] was an a——,” Bobby muttered. “Did you see his arms? He’s so roided out, it’s ridiculous.”
“I’ve seen all those supplements in his locker,” I said.
“That’s just for show,” Bobby said. “He’s juicing.”
Citing the possibility of “emergency situations” for Team Japan at the World Baseball Classic, manager Tatsunori Hara watched earlier this week as Ichiro skipped batting practice and took the mound instead.
In his workout on the 7th, [Ichiro] skipped batting practice and worked out as a pitcher. He threw 56 pitches off the mound at Skymark Stadium, throwing fastballs and forkballs. Word is that he hit 147kmph (92mph) with his fastest pitch. Ichiro said he wants to throw a little bit harder.
Sanspo has a series of photos of his work out: 1, 2, 3, 4.
Hara isn’t used to managing games that go beyond 12 innings, which might explain the idea of using Ichiro as a pitcher. Still, Ichiro would probably be the most credible pitching candidate among the fielders in this year’s WBC. However far-fetched it might be, we might see Ichiro pitch in a competitive game this year.
Over at Mariners Blog, Seattle GM Jack Zduriencik summed up the unexpected spectacle with its momentous and extraordinary potential in a single, breathless quote:
Above: The (normally invisible) hand of the free market.
Most religious holidays have long forgotten the specifics of what they celebrate, and the Super Bowl is no exception. Last year’s Giants-Pats cliffhanger notwithstanding, the traditional recipe is heavy on hooplah and light on competition. We watch, looking less for on-field history and more for the inter-conference resolution, perhaps out of a sense of obligation toward those squads whose perseverance through a season of this intensely violent sport is genuinely exceptional. That they usually huff-puff across the finish line is almost to be expected.
While an on-field afterthought, competition, albeit of a different kind dominates today’s game atmosphere. For today is the first post-economic-meltdown Super Bowl, and the reminders are coming hot and heavy for US taxpayers that we’re down 44-6 in the fourth quarter with nine minutes to go.
In 1981, swept into high office on a promise to burn down the country’s high offices, President Ronald Reagan’s first Super Bowl (XV) saw Jim Plunkett and the Raiders upset the Eagles 27-10 at the Louisiana Superdome. Too far removed from the 1930s, too trusting of business, and convinced of the evils of “Big Government” the public happily sent in the Gipper to get it “off our backs”.
He did, as they say, a heck of a job. XXIV years later in 2005, the Superdome became the eternal symbol of the laissez-faire Reagan Revolution, writ large in human feces. Tens of thousands of Katrina victims stuffed into the dome whiled away the days, then the weeks as the inaction born of the Reagan conservative’s hatred of the public shone like a thousand points of (privately owned) light.
While less bloody and more advertiser-friendly, the basic spectacle of non-stop sodomization of the public by business interests remains the subtext of today’s game. No longer is a natural disaster necessary for us to feel acutely the kleptocracy’s unnecessary roughness while we sit in a stadium. All we need is to read the name on the sign above its entrance.
Super Bowl XLIII is hosted in Tampa, FL at Raymond James Stadium, an arena built – as is the norm – with public money extorted under threat of economic warfare. As usual, the business world has no problem with taxes as long as they’re the ones collecting them: in 1995, Buccaneers owner Malcom Glazer threatened to take the team away from Tampa if the community did not levy a tax to finance the construction of the stadium. Glazer negotiated a stadium lease that stuck the county government with the $200 million construction as well as ongoing maintenance costs, allowing Forbes magazine to rate the value of the Bucs at nearly $1 billion in 2007.
While that may seem old hat at this point, and many Tampans believe they haven’t been strung along, the toxic shock culminates in the stadium naming rights deal. Because Raymond James Financial, Inc. is but one more in a long list of stadium name holders who once had enough cash on hand to pollute the sporting landscape with their names, but today, post-meltdown find themselves applying for a piece of billions in public money under the TARP or other programs.
If nothing else can be taken away from this, at least the jig is up. No one may watch this or any future Super Bowl and argue these blow-dried captains of industry were really serious all those years as they droned on in Reaganesque fashion about the almighty private sector or personal self-reliance or avoiding the “moral hazard” of government assistance. Today’s game and stadium name is proof that like a lot of us, they’ve got a hand out as well — it’s just hard to tell with the Hummer windows closed.
“We don’t want to be overly opportunistic and exploit this,” lied Boyer after producing multiple designs, obtaining MLB Properties approval and crouching by the telephone, gleefully rubbing his hands while awaiting a green light from the Oval Office.
Fine with me if the first thing to be shot down by the Obama administration is this dubious idea. No offense to Boyer, but if bringing Chicago its only World Series ring in a combined 184 seasons netted the Sox no prestige, then slapping the President’s campaign glyph on a Sox hat isn’t going to do it either.
January 20, 2009. Hours following his inauguration, 44th President of the United States Barack Obama convenes a national security meeting with US Air Force Chief Of Staff General Norton A. Schwartz.
Good afternoon and congratulations, Mister President.
Thank you for being here, General.
What’s on your mind, sir?
General, it’s my understanding that the Air Force has recently undergone a series of oversight problems with the country’s nuclear arsenal.
Yes sir, that’s true.
(The president consults a file folder.)
In August 2007, six nuclear cruise missiles were mistakenly loaded onto the wings of a B-52 in a North Dakota airbase and flown to an airbase in Louisiana.
That is correct, sir. There was an investigation. Dozens of airmen were disciplined and numerous officers, including my predecessor, General Moseley, resigned as a result of the incident.
Then, in June 2008, the Air Force mistakenly shipped four nuclear fuses to Taiwan.
Also correct, Mister President. The –
Following that, in November 2008, the 341st Missile Wing at Malmstrom Air Force Base failed a nuclear surety inspection. And following that, just last month the 90th Missile Wing at Warren Air Force Base failed its surety inspection.
Sir, we –
General, I have a question.
Sir?
I assume you are familiar with the practice of having Air Force jets fly over certain sporting events during the national anthem.
Yes sir, I am. I think I know where you’re going with this. Sir, those aircraft are not fitted with nuclear weapons.
But could they be?
Technically…yes, but that would be highly unusual.
Unusual? “Flying 900 miles with six nukes in the luggage rack” unusual, or “that guy’s got the same name as me” unusual?
Well, Mr. President, we –
General, I’m going to give you a date and a place. You’re going to want to write this down. April 13, 2009. Chicago. Opening Day at Wrigley Field.
Sir. I want to assure you that –
General, I have every faith that you will personally ensure that the aircraft performing the flyover will be equipped appropriately for the mission. Every faith.
(President Obama dons his White Sox cap.)
Appropriately, sir?
Appropriately.
(General Schwartz thinks.)
The Cubs are playing the Rockies that day.
Can’t be helped. Besides, Matt Holliday got traded to the A’s, so there’s that.
In a sense, both MLB rules changes for 2009 are attempts to make sense of a world beset by uncontrollable, random occurrence. While it’s one thing to address the vagaries of weather in postseason games, it’s something else entirely to imply that the rules robbed a team of its allegedly rightful home-field advantage in the postseason.
The end of the MLB coin flip has its roots in the 2008 AL Central campaign. Despite being given at least a dozen opportunities to exploit the injured White Sox and take the division in the traditional manner, the Minnesota Twins’ season-long huff-puffing forced them to a one-game playoff against the injury-hobbled division leaders. The home team of that game was decided, as per the old rule, by coin flip, bringing the contest to Chicago, where the Twins were shut out 1-0.
Miffed, Minnesota promptly began an off-season campaign of sobbing and bitter, bitter tears that found a sympathetic ear. GMs voted last week for the rules change banishing the coin flip from any such decisions in the future. The home field in such a scenario will now be decided by the season record between the teams instead of an arbitrary coin flip, or by drawn lots in the case of a multi-way tie.
The Twins’ newfound distaste for contests being hinged on the random, unpredictable motion of flying objects is remarkable, given the historically huge number of Twin extra bases attributable to the carpeted concrete of the Metrodome and the insanely erratic paths of grounders upon same. Then again, it is that very monstrosity that has a date with the wrecking ball after this season, forcing the Twins into the open — where the sky isn’t colored like a baseball. Maybe they just see the writing on the baggie. Bravo to Burl Ives and company for finally embracing a more deterministic future.
Chicago Tribune’s Dave van Dyck reports the fourth slot in the White Sox rotation may be stuffed with bulky 36 year old RHP Bartolo Colon. The regional network of Old Country Buffet restaurants has been placed on threat level Orange.
The White Sox are on the verge of bringing back Bartolo Colon to see if he has enough left in his innings-taxed arm to help in the starting rotation.
Colon, who was 15-13 with a 3.87 ERA in a career-high 242 innings for the 2003 Sox, spent most of last season fighting back problems while with Boston.
Colon will be 36 in May and pitched only 39 innings last summer, but sources said the White Sox think he still has enough that he will be signed to a non-guaranteed one-year, incentive-laden deal if he passes a physical.
The pending deal apparently means another former Sox veteran, Freddy Garcia, will not return to supplement a rotation headed by Mark Buehrle, John Danks and Gavin Floyd.
Colon is expected to compete with Clayton Richard, Lance Broadway, rookie Aaron Poreda and Jeff Marquez, acquired from the Yankees in the Nick Swisher trade, for a spot in the back end of the rotation.
No one is sure what Colon has left in his 5-foot-11-inch, 250-plus-pound body. He started only seven games for Boston last year but won four of them before straining his back while batting in an interleague game.
He was placed on the 60-day disabled list and, after being shelled in his return, was sent to the bullpen. He later was suspended without pay Sept. 19 after leaving the team because he was upset at being a reliever.
White Sox general manager Ken Williams, who always has been a Colon fan, is ready to take another chance on the burly right-hander. Colon last pitched more than 100 innings in 2005, when he threw 2222/3 while going 21-8 for the Angels. He is 150-97 for his career.
Colon’s off-speed stuff has always been wicked, and had he not pulled a muscle in the ‘05 ALDS against New York, the Sox might not have benefited from the early appearance and defeat of John Lackey in the ALCS Game 3 in Anaheim. But that’s just it: Colon’s muscles have been so tasked with the job of carrying around Bartolo Colon, it wouldn’t be any surprise that the tank is empty for other endavors. You can eat a lot of innings, or you can eat a lot of arroz con pollo, but you probably can’t do both.
The second count in the federal criminal complaint filed this morning against Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich alleges the man in blue’s unhappiness with certain Tribune editorials critical of the governor drove him to the eye-poppingly risky maneuver of attempting to shake down the newspaper. The cmplaint alleges the First Fan threatened to withold state funds for Wrigley Field, dealing them as the reward for firing the responsible editors.
Even when evaluated against historic standards of Chicago political corruption, this act of brinksmanship is beyond the pale. A politically powerful fan extorting team ownership over negative press coverage is one thing. But to shake down a bankrupted newspaper publisher who presumably had working telephones in the building and FBI phone numbers on file is a jaw-dropper.
Beginning no later than November 2008 to the present, in Cook County, in the Northern District of Illinois, defendants ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH and JOHN HARRIS, being agents of the State of Illinois, a State government which during a one-year period, beginning January 1, 2008 and continuing to the present, received federal benefits in excess of $10,000, corruptly solicited and demanded a thing of value, namely, the firing of certain Chicago Tribune editorial members responsible for widely-circulated editorials critical of ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, intending to be influenced and rewarded in connection with business and transactions of the State of Illinois involving a thing of value of $5,000 or more, namely, the provision of millions of dollars in financial assistance by the State of Illinois, including through the Illinois Finance Authority, an agency of the State of Illinois, to the Tribune Company involving the Wrigley Field baseball stadium; in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Sections 666(a)(1)(B) and 2.
Blagojevioch striking just when the Trib was brought to their knees by Kosuke Fukudome’s contract is not only treason against Cub Nation, it has truly redefined what is possible. Who would have ever believed the Tribune could be painted in a positive light?
Well-known to pine for his native Puerto Rico, RHP Javier Vazquez will be sent much closer to home in a six-player deal with the Atlanta Braves, reports Whitesox.com. Earlier mumbling in these pages about the deal bringing too little speed appears baseless upon closer examination of the AAA Richmond numbers of SS Brent Lillibridge. Please direct all complaints about journalistic integrity to refunds@cantstopthebleeding.com.
The White Sox completed a six-player trade with the Braves today, sending pitchers Javier Vazquez and Boone Logan to Atlanta for catcher Tyler Flowers, infielders Jonathan Gilmore and Brent Lillibridge, and left-handed pitcher Santos Rodriguez.
Flowers, 22, was named to the Class A Carolina League All-Star Team in 2008 after hitting .288 with 17 home runs and 88 RBI. More recently, he batted .387 with 12 home runs and 23 RBI in just 20 games in the Arizona Fall League.
Gilmore, a 20-year-old third baseman, combined to hit .294 with four home runs and 35 RBI in 94 games with Advanced Rookie Danville and Class A Rome in 2008. He originally was selected as a sandwich pick (33rd overall) in the June 2007 First-Year Player Draft.
Lillibridge, a 25-year-old shortstop, spent most of the 2008 season with Class AAA Richmond, hitting .220 with seven triples, four home runs, 39 RBI and 23 stolen bases in 90 games. He also appeared in 29 games with Atlanta, batting .200 in 80 at-bats. Lillibridge was ranked by Baseball America as the No. 6 Prospect in the Braves organization following the 2007 season.
Rodriguez, 20, went 1-2 with a 2.79 ERA, five saves and 45 strikeouts in 29 innings with the Gulf Coast League Braves in 2008. He was named to Baseball America’s Rookie League All-Star Team and led the GCL with 13.9 strikeouts per 9.0 IP.
Youth and speed, a badly needed upgrade for the farm system, a $22M payroll dump and no more expectations of a double-digit ERA in September from Mr. Relaxation. Not bad, not bad.
In a fit of late-season, late-inning desperation, it was in these very pale blue pages that I suggested White Sox reliever Boone Logan be removed from the bullpen and returned to duty as a lookout at a meth lab. Behold now as MLB.com’s Mark Bowman confirms the scary power of CSTB:
Javier Vazquez is coming to Atlanta, and as long as everything goes well with his physical, he’ll serve as the first piece to the Braves’ rotation-reconstruction process.
The Braves and White Sox are finalizing a six-player trade that would bring right-hander Vazquez and left-handed reliever Boone Logan to Atlanta.
According to a Major League source, Vazquez will travel to Atlanta on Wednesday for a physical. If all goes well, both teams could choose to announce this deal as early as Wednesday afternoon.
The Braves provided a list of five players from which the White Sox could choose four. Chicago is believed to have the most interest in shortstop Brent Lillibridge and Minor League catcher Tyler Flowers, who was one of the most impressive offensive weapons in this year’s Arizona Fall League.
Lillibridge, characterized as “speedy” by the Tribune’s Mark Gonzales and “whatever” by readers of statistics, stole a less than impressive 2 bases last year for 80 plate appearances in a .200 season. Happier is the naming of minor league catcher Tyler Flowers, whose eventual appearance on the Sox would be well-anticipated thanks to his 20 games with the Mesa Solar Sox for 23 RBI, 12 HR, a .387 average and innumerable opportunities to run photos of Wayland Flowers and Madam.
Other persistent Chisox trade rumors include Bobby Jenks to the Mets pen and RF Jermaine Dye to the Reds for RHP Homer Bailey as an overly generous thank-you note for renting Junior last year. I’d not want to see Bobby go, but the more I think about it, he’s not throwing it past them like he once did. He might be at his peak value and a big-market team could be where he belongs. And while I’d definitely rather deal Konerko than Dye and spare myself the the grumbling watching him flirt with .220 for months, the gap left by Javy needs to be addressed somehow.
(Above: In happier times, George Will contemplates fellating Hank Paulson while the Secretary lectures Lou Piniella on the “moral hazard” of pulling pitchers too soon)
Decades of Republican-led market deregulation have been coming home to roost lately while the world slowly learns that US-style book-cooking has indeed poked its member into everyone’s mashed potatoes. As markets catch fire, a massive reconsideration of assumptions is underway, the biggest of which is the question of optimism itself. And nowhere in the worlds of high finance and sport is there a greater confluence of insane, unsustainable optimism than what is found in the stands at Wrigley Field. While historic, it isn’t a surprise to learn that along with commercial paper, credit derivatives and stock indexes, the bottom is falling out on the loyalty futures of America’s team as sellers rush to market. The Chicago Tribune’s James Janega reports:
Bidding will close early next week on eBay item 120313290200 — one heartbroken man’s Cubs loyalty.
Even before Saturday night’s wrenching loss swept the team from contention for a World Series title — for the 100th year in a row — Scot Moore decided he’d had enough.
“In the interest of sparing my emotions from one more gut-wrenching season,” the 30-year-old Minneapolis resident wrote on eBay after Thursday’s Game 2 flameout against the Los Angeles Dodgers, “I am auctioning off my loyalty to the Chicago Cubs.”
Moore grew up in Wheaton and has been a Cubs fan for as long as he remembers — long before he logged on to the online auction site Friday as “lenina4sammy” and made his long-suffering Cubs devotion a liquid commodity.
As of Tuesday afternoon, bids topped $455 — plus $4.80 shipping and handling (for what, we don’t know). Bidding closes Monday. Moore said he will donate the money to two small theater troupes in Minneapolis, burn what remains of his Cubs memorabilia, and wear a sports jersey of the winning bidder’s choosing.
Ben, if you need any help setting up a PayPal account, I’m here for you.
Top 4th: BJ Upton 2, White Sox 0…Gavin Floyd walked Crawford to lead off the 4th and I’m back at Ten Cat on Ashland. BJ has tagged young Gavin for two dingers and MLB is reporting these two go back to high school together…Cliff Floyd just doubled to let to drive in Crawford and the bad news keeps coming as Dioner Navarro drives in Floyd o a single to right…Rays 4 White Sox 0…Gavin out, Clayton Richard is in…Gabe Gross up…grounds into a 6-4-3 dp…Bartlett flies to center….whoa, great catch by Junior to end the season inning. I didn’t see much of Gavin, but I’m willing to bet the problem wasn’t in missing the zone or the plate, or the dead-center of the plate…
Bot 4th: Dye and Thome fly out..Paulie battles and what was a cut fastball becomes a souvenir in left - Rays 4 White Sox 1…Sonnanstine v Griffey ends badly as the legend swings at ball 3 for the final out.
Top 5th: Floyd went 3 IP with 5R 4H 2BB and 4K before he got the hookski…Iwamura singles to right with one out…bringing up BJ Upton, starved of his preferred offerings from Floyd grounds to Uribe for out #2.. Pena singles to left and drives in Iwamura…Rays 5 White Sox 1…Clayton fans Longoria…and AJ guns down Pena on a steal attempt to put this sad, sad inning to an end.
Bot 5th: Ramirez lines out to left, Dewayne Wise looks at an 0-2 fastball on the corner for the next out…Juan Uribe puts a whole lot into a weak-ass popup clearing the way for what all of Western civilization was mere precursor to: an Ashton Kutcher camera commercial.
Top 6th: Welcoming Ben “Our Year” Schwartz to the liveblog and welcoming Carl Crawford to the plate, who gets a leadoff walk, which rarely ends badly…Aybar flies to Junior ad Crawford won’t try him… Navarro pops to shallow left…2 out for Gabe Gross as Thornton starts tossing in the pen…Crawford does try AJ and beats the throw on a steal to second…Cabrera actually whiffed but wouldnt have made the tag..Richard can’t pry the baseball giant Gabe Gross out of the box at a 1-2 count…2-2…popped up — Rocco Baldelli would have never done that.
Bot 6th: Cabrera sends one to the warning track, which will not count toward the score…AP Popupski does his thing to center…and Jermaine Dye shows em how it’s done, as long as it’s done one solo home run at the time…Rays 5 White Sox 2…for some reason that’s enough to get Sonanstine (5 1/3 3H 2 R 1BB 4K) the hook…I don’t see it, myself…J.P. Howell III takes the mound to face Thome…Billionaire recluse Howard Hughes has apparently returned to his season seat behind the left hand batters…roller 4-3. Expect Thornton now.
Top 7th: Not Thornton, Dotel in to face Bartlett…who sends a 3-2 fastball to left past Uribe for a double…and NOW comes Thornton for Iwamura…punched out inside for out number one…Pena up after an intentional walk of BJ Upton…2 on and one out…Pena scores Bartlett on a line drive – Rays 6 Sox 2 and now…the end is near…and so we face…Evan Longoria, whose pop to Cabrera fails to end the inning…Pena steals second..Crawford grounds out
Bot 7th: a paulie broken bat pop to left…Junior works Howell 3-2..gets him on a wicked curve, take a good look at Ken Griffey Jr, it’s gonna have to last you all winter…Alexei singles up the middle to start the most legendary rally in Sox playoff history bring up Nick Swisher…Navarro calls time and Howell almost falls on his face…and Nick Swisher, Son Of Steve, has popped up to end the inning. Genes. There’s nothing you can do about them.
Top 8th: whatever, no score
Bot 8th: Making four runs out of six outs isn’t impossible in theory…but Juan Uribe groudning out won’t help matters…neither will Balfour V Cabrera, the matchup in the first game of this series that I trace all the bad news to, where Cabrera decided to indulge in bargain-basement posturing instead of taking advantage of bases loaded…and now he flies to left. So long, OC, and I mean forever, you free-agent fuckup..AJ Faroutski walks…Dye gets ahead at 2-1..Balfour has a brief chat with his cap….and sneaks strike three past JD. JD, you magnificent WS MVP bastard, see you next year without that Colombian puta batting in front of you.
Top 9th: Scotty Linebrink, had you been around, would the Twins have even been stuck in the Pale Hose rearview mirror all year? As Iwamura doubles to left off you, even these comforting thoughts fade….Upton sac flies to dye and Iwamura gets to third…Pena gets the intentional walk…and the 0-for-4- Longoria makes it an even five.
(Wrigley Field ATM, 7:38 AM. Please Contact Your Financial Institution)
In between chatter concerning the White Sox carrying Chicago’s playoff hopes, all morning on the radio, news of a Cubs “shrine to futility” rode the airwaves. The reports were that disgruntled Cub fans had left an anguished pile of 2008 season keepsakes at the friendly confines’ gate, including letters, torn posters, and bitter, bitter tears.
One letter, short and to the point, stood out.
“Dear Cubs,” it began. “Thanks for nothing.”
Among the torn-up Cubs posters and T-shirts, another note read: “Dear Cubs 2008, It really hurts knowing I’ll never see you again. We had some great times.”
The shrine, at Waveland and Sheffield, was started by Murphy’s Bleachers workers upset at the Cubs getting drummed out of the playoffs. It grew as passersby added messages and trinkets.
Seeing as my office is barely a mile away from the Century of No Progress at 1060 West Addison, I thought I would make a brief diversion from my regular routine and head over to see for myself what a broken Cub Nation does to console itself. White Sox cap perched on head at a rakish angle, Treo in hand, I took a lap around the park, beaming a smile wider than Bobby Jenks’ waistband.
Imagine my chagrin when I found no such shrine at all. Faster than the Republic of Germany had erased all traces of the Berlin wall, the Wrigley staff had swept up the grieving fans’ offerings into the dustbin of history. Speedily bagged and destined to rot in the garbage dump landfills at Hillside were the candles, the Old Style cans and the foil balloons, their sentiments already consigned to become sediment.
A guy in a Cubs hat approached. Our eyes met.
“Lilly starting tonight?” I chirped.
No answer.
The hunt still on, I continued my lap around Wrigley in the early morning sunlight, past the rooftop condos and the empty spots where broadcast trucks stood idling just days ago. Surely that shrine is still here, I told myself. They can’t have thrown it away already. It’s gotta be here.
When I arrived back where I began, at the Ernie Banks statue, I realized with a start what had just happened. That I, too had fallen victim to Cub fan entitlement, not realizing my expectations were way out of whack, not understanding the world I lived in.
I had come seeking a shrine, catharsis, closure. All I found were Quarter Pounder wrappers.
In which a young, speedy, up 2-0 Rays squad seeks to “Steve Irwin” the fatter, slower White Sox and advance to the ALCS. The hitch: the old guys are armed with bats and have home lagoon advantage. It’s Garza (11-9, 3.70) vs. Danks (12-9, 3.22) vs. a rain-soaked US Cellular field…
Top 1: Iwamura singles past Danks to get things started…Upton strikes out swinging, Pena pokes one past Konerko and puts Iawmura on third. Hello, Evan Longoria..slices to right and a charging Jermaine Dye makes the grab and holds Iawmura to third…Crawford checks a grounder back to Danks for the put out.
Bot 1: Cabrera grounds to third for the first out…AJ pop foul out…Dye sends one to shallow left exactly where Crawford is generally camped out. A 1-2-3 playoff inning for a Chicago squad not wearing blue: how novel.
Top 2: Danks throws right at Aybar and he pops an 0-2 fastball to left for out one…Navarro doubles to left thanks to a pokey jump by Dewayne Goddamn Wise…Baldelli swings-a da bat-a anna grounds-a out-a 4-3 while Navarro advances..Bartlett fouls his way to 2-2…Danks fires low, 3-2..outside, doesn’t bite, ball four. Iawmura up, already 1 for 1. 1-1…1-2 on a high breaker…2-2…tapper infield single scores Navarro…Rays 1 Sox 0…Upton to the plate, wild pitch off of AJ’s glove…scored a passed ball..popped to Wise in left…Wise, presumably having finished his phone call to his mother makes the grab for out #3.
Bot 2: Jim Thome, 1 for 4 against Garza, and is it any surprise that the 1 is a longball?…1-1…2-1…3-1..a South Side pigeon pecking around on the 1B foul line remains unimpressed with Gentleman Jim Thome and his fouls off of Garza…3-2…Thome struck out upstairs swinging at ball 4…Paulie up…2-0…popped foul in the backstop for two out…hello, Junior…pigeon even less impressed with Griffey…Navarro gets up and kicks dirt at the sky rat, Garza follows up with a swat with his mitt…this is some kind of teamwork for those two since they were once at each other throats in the dugout…pigeon finally in fowl territory..and Junior drops a shallow-center single in front of Upton…a second sewer falcon has arrived and is in front of Alexei Ramirez as he fouls to left…only to get out of the way for Ramirez’ limp grounder to second.
Top 3: Pena up…and Pena down with Danks’ second K..Longoria long fly to left, Wise under it…2 out…Crawford…flings the bat and sends a shot to Cabrera, who barely gets it out of his shirt pocket to make the out at first. Danks has retired four.
Bot 3: The infield now cleared of squab, Wise may bunt..1-1…2-1..3-1 missed change..fouled ball four…3-2…inside at the elbow, take your base Dewayne…Juan Uribe up and looking pleased…suddenly ugly theories as to where the pigeons ended up present themselves…rocket shot to first, Wise awake enough to get back into the bag! Nice! 1 out..Cabrera goes a wordless 0-2…then he bites at a slider for the out…AJ Simpson playing games with Garza, looking at Wise at first while he was in his windup…now 1-2…Wise goes, Navarro’s throw bites the grass and sends it into center but Bartlett lays on Wise at the bag not only saving third but making a regulation WWF takedown…AJ singles a dead breaker up the middle to score Wise Rays 1 Sox 1…outfield deepens for Dye….bouncer 5-4.
Top 4: Aybar faces Danks’s high offerings, pops to center…Navarro lines to left and Wise is again asleep on his jump a single results…Rocco Baldelli pops-a waaay high inna de air-a for out-a numero due…Bartlett’s up…2-0…2-1…Bartlett pairs up with Baldelli’s pop-up to get the Sox, (if not myself) out of the inning with dignity intact.
Bot 4: Jim Thome takes Garza’s first-pitch mistake fastball off the wall for a double..Konerko up…2-1…Garza’s curves aren’t cutting any ice with the Sox on this go-around…3-1 high…3-2, swings at a dirtball…WALK!…Jim Hickey out to talk to Garza, which may be a challenge given that the hurler has earplugs in..Steve Stone must be reading this liveblog, because he said the same thing just now – quit biting my beats, Stone Pony…Griffey lifts one to right to load em up with wheezing, panting, elderly White Sox…Alexei Ramirez sends one to Upton in center, scores Thome and Griffey slides into second – safe! Rays 1 Sox 2 Wise DOUBLES to left and drives in Griffey and Konerko… Rays 1 Sox 4…Rays pen still not up…Uribe up, displaying one of his many batting stances…struck out on an outside crapball…Cabrera to the plate…jammed 6-3. Muchas gracias, Senor Garza!
Top 5: Iwamura shows bunt…0-2..shot down swinging on a slider out of the zone..BJ Upton, looking to add one more entry to his resume after “failed to throw out Ken Griffey Jr. at second, 2008″ goes 2-2…K! That’s Danks’s 4th K…Pena flies to left.
Bot 5: Garza’s complaints about the pitching mound landing area have brought out Sox groundskeeper Roger Bossard, a cadre of assistants and an implement resembling a Garden Weasel. Garza immediately brushes away the changes made with his foot. Further complaints are issued, shovels are produced and the scene resembles one of the less exciting HGTV specials…AJ is up, fastballs are still high…leadoff double for AJ and BJ Upton breaks Dewayne Wise’s monopoly on late jumps…Jim Thome takes a “strike” at the socks…0-2, 1-2, 2-2 check swing, 3-2 dirtball…WALK! ..Miller up in the Rays pen…Konerko faces Garza with one out and two on over a horribly scarred pitcher’s mound…1-1, 2-1 way outside, fouled, 5-4-3 DP.
Top 6: In the matter of Danks v. Longoria, 3-0 becomes 3-1…and a leadoff walk results…the 0-2 Carl Crawford gets ball 1 inside, prompting AJ to personally return the ball..2-0 wide outside…Ozzie comes to the mound, Dotel getting up in the pen…2-1 for Crawford…3-1 check swing..3-2 fastball at the knees…HITS the inside corner for strike three, have a seat Carl. Thornton joins Dotel in the pen…Aybar: 1-2, PUNCHES him out on an inside cutter, 2 out. Navarro takes strike 1…fans up and vocal…1-1, fouled back 1-2, 2-2, the air filled with the sound of baseball fans, pay attention to how it’s done, Wrigleyville – Navarro popped to Dye — 3 outs.
Bot 6: Garza in against a 2 for 2 Ken Griffey:2-2, 3-2, ball in the stands,and his 83rd pitch walks Junior, Brian Anderson pinch-running, not that BJ Upton’s arm is a threat or anything…Alexe goes 1-1, Anderson goes and Navarro can’t dig the ball out of the dirt…2-2, sharp chop to Longoria’s right who gets Alexei by half a step, Anderson on third…Wise sends a line shot to Pena who looks at Anderson then takes the play at first…Uribe laces a fastball to left, Rays 1 Sox 5..Cabrera swings,Uribe goes, Navarro’s throw to second short – Uribe safe at second..Wild Pitch! Garza sends one off the plate and sends Uribe to third…Cabrera tries to bunt, was probably news to Uribe….1-2….Cabrera, as he has all day, swings at a high outside dead slider.
Top 7: Johnny Danks sends a cutter to Rocco “Rocco” Baldelli for strike two, 1-2, 2-2, 3-2, missed low and walked the leadoff man again. 93 pitches. Bartlett takes ball 1,ball 2, all low, 2-1, in there 2-2, punched out on a change that’s still headed to the plate as I type…Iwamura up…popped up short left, with wind heading hard west and nobody else after it, Wise keeps it interesting…2 out…BJ Upton sends a Danks fastball over the wall for a two run homer in left…Rays 3 Sox 5…Pena 1-1, 2-1,line drive drops to right for a single and Danks will get the hook to a standing O…
Octavio Dotel trots out to the mound, the entire Sox season riding on his kneesocks, 3.76 ERA and sporadic control. Longoria up first. Check 0-1, 0-2 on a straight change, fouled off a heater, 1-2 in the dirt, wild pitch moves Pena to second…belt-high heater gets him looking!
Bot 7: Garza gone – 6IP 5R 7H 4BB 4K – Trever Miller (4.15 ERA) in…AJ leads off..2-0, 3-0, Pena visits the mound…and Miller coughs up Ball four. Madden pulls Miller and swaps for submariner righty Chad Bradford (2.12 ERA) …Dye in the box…Ball one!..check foul…4-6-3 double play ball right to Iwamura…Thome…0-1, 1-1, 2-1 almost hit him and certainly should have,pop to Upton instead.
Top 8: Enter Matt Thornton to face Crawford…1-0, 1-1, 1-2 heater on the corner, tap foul, grounder 5-3 and a nice recovery out of the dirt by Konerko…Aybar chops a roller up the 1B line, Thornton grabs and plays Right Tackle to Aybar’s Left Guard in the tag…Navarro walks…Baldelli flies to center….three more outs…
Bot 8: Gabe Gross in RF because-a Signori Baldelli is-a all-a pooped-out. Bradford’s subterranean hinijks work Konerko to 0-2…2 fouls, fly ball to left, can of corn for Crawford…speaking of delicious corn, Bobby Jenks is up and throwing…Brian Anderson takes a sinker for ball 1, which, from Bradford, rises and sinks like my Bohemian grandmother’s dumplings…Anderson swings at a rising slider for srike three..bacon gravy usually accompanied these dumplings, dumplings that weighed more than 2B Alexei Ramirez, who is worked 2-0…bunt foul…3-1…foul tipped ball 4, 3-2…1-3 chopper and that’s all she wrote. See, you’d put them in the boiling water and they’d sink, then rise up then sink again. So good.
Bobby.
Bartlett takes two balls. 2-1…3-1…tapped foul a 95MPH up and in 3-2..foul…pop to Cabrera. Two more. Iwamura grounds right back to Bobby who grabs it like a calzone for the toss to Konerko…Upton takes 2-0 and then singles to left bringing the tying run to home plate… Pena v. Jenks: foul 0-1…96 MPH…0-2 (95)..bedlam in the park…THE HAMMER and off go the fireworks!
Chicago: you’re welcome for the rescue of your civic dignity as regards matters of playoff baseball. Don’t mention it. And by that, I mean I’m sure you won’t mention it.
Bot 7: Buehrle gets Perez to ground out 5 3..2 out..Iwamura..4 3 grounder..
Top 8: running out of time…must..not..drop first two…Uribe vs Howell..K..Anderson..punched out looking on a skyhook curve..OC inna hey-ouse..swinging at any old slider..1-2..base hit up the middle..- Swisher: 3-0..full count..punched out looking…What did you expect from the son of a Cub, anyway?…Bot 8: BJ Upton triples to center..one run driven on Sox 2 Rays 4…and at this point I need to bow out and meet a guy buying some gear I listed on Craigslist at 8 PM…Godspeed White Sox and CSTB.(ED NOTE : Rays 6, White Sox 2, finale)
You know, I did consider just shutting down the liveblog of this game due to the teeny-tiny technology I brought to the party. But then it occurred to me that just because I’m seated a mile away from Wrigley is no reason at all to adopt local mores and throw in the towel. And so we continue:
Top 4th: Kazmir punches out Uribe…then sends Anderson back looking..Kazimir has officially settled down…Cabrera up..drops a single into shallow right followed by a Nick Swisher roller up l center…Dye up…3 for 6 in series…chopper to second to end the inning Sox 2 Rays 1
Bot 4: Longoria does not homer fouls left…Buehrle strikes him out on a wicked slider…wicked Ayala double up left field past a pokey uribe, hobbled by florida nightlife…pop up 2 out…
Top 5th: sox out of inning following Ramirez hit…Received a phonecall on the Treo, which as it turns out, throws a wrench into the blogging works something fierce. Future CSTB barfly correspondents take note.
Bot 5K Fernando Perez thrown out at 1st…Bartlett: singles a dead slider to left..Iwamura…lifts a 2 run opp field homer to l center….Sox 2 Rays 3
Top 6: Uribe: singles up middle…Anderson lays down the sac bunt Uribe adv…Kazimir gets the hook…Grant Balfour in, to the chagrin of Cabrera in the box…1 out..Balfour yelling at his glove…OC grounds out 6 3 uribe advances..Swish bats left…into a left field pop fly to end the gdmf inning…Bot 6: Longoria: laces one into left for a single..Aybar: drops sac bunt Long to 2nd..Baldelli is-a up-a da bat-a…fouls off AJ’s mask…fly out to Swish, Long won’t try..2 out..Navarro 5- 3 grounder
Top 7: Dye V. Balfour Dye reaches on a bobble…Konerko baseit to left 1st and 2nd no out..Thome up..Balfour out LHP JP Howell in.Thome jammed and popped to ctr..Alexei: total bullshit 0 2 count..line to Aybar, 2 out…AJ rolls to 1st. Cub-like perfomance, frankly.
(This is a liveblog attempt from my Palm Treo. I haven’t tried this before so it may not work.)
Top 1 Kazmir’s in trouble. He loaded the bases for Paule with now outs…Paul struck out but Thome sac flied in a run and Alexei just singled Sox 2 Rays 0 .. AJ dropped a roller on the plastic ftass to juice the bags again
..Juan Oooh Oooh Uribe up…struck out while I futzed with this 2 inch by 2 inch Treo screen…seems to be working okay…repirting live from Ten Cat on Ashland, deep in Cubs Country…
Iwamura up…Buehrle pops him up to Swish in left 1 out..Upton up…Buehrle gets him looking…Crawford up…chopper to Cabrera who whiffs it with his meat hand…”Meat Hand” by coincidence the name of a delicacy at the nearby Diner Grill on Irving…Longoria up and its a 6 3 end of the inning…Rays v Lefties sub .500 this year…
Top 2…Anerson…Kazimir not rattled…3-2..Fly ball 8…1 out…Uptons grabs a foul and eats a fan’s hotdog in the process…Swisher up…3-1…walks…Kazmir didn’t really miss. Dye up…2-2..Ka,irs’s next fastball is sent to left for a single…Paulie up w 2 on, peanut salt embedding itself into expensive cellphone..and Konerko flies out to left to end the inning
…Bot 2 (overheard at Ten Cat pool table: “You break like a girl” I saw the break, and that observation could have been wronger.). Aybar singles to left…error on Alexei catches a line drive and overthrows to 1st…they give &ybar third for some reason..I suspwct Jeb Bush….Navarro drieves in Aybaar with a singke to left…Perez up…1 out…Buehrele takes hom 0-2 before he cope a single to left past a daydreaming Uribe…Jason Bartlett up…1 out…bartletts sharp foul left doesn’t bode well..but the 4 6 3 dp follows…Chicagoans please note: The Ten Cat’s ATM is not working…bring dollars people..
Top 3: Thome v Kazimir…fly 7 1 out…Alexei up: Out. Problem: the Treo browser text entry memory buffer is now too full to continue editing this post. May continue in new post
I have written that I endorse wholeheartedly the prospect of a 2008 Cubs pennant. My reason for this is a simple wish to settle the Crosstown series on the world stage, and in obtaining that second ring in three seasons, give birth finally to a White Sox Nation.
However, last night has demonstrated the Cubs have a capacity for defeat on the baseball diamond heretofore unnoticed. Huddled against the cold, the normally astute Lou Piniella did not reach for the bullpen phone and passively allowed Ryan Dempster to walk seven batters before giving up a slam, the lead, and the enthusiasms of the attending crowd of currency traders.
To these silenced fans, I exhort: Bankers! Speculators! Griffins and swells! This is no time for mopery! Your tickets bought you admission to a game of baseball, and those players on the field need you more than ever. Upon it, they are struggling in an athletic contest, where the outcome is undetermined. Many of you, not having personally experienced such conditions are understandably confused, even frightened. There, there.
Buck up, Cub Nation, you have little to worry about. Outside of last year’s playoffs, the Cubs are simply not in the habit of dropping three straight games to be eliminated from postseason play. And last year was just that: last year. This year is last year’s next year. There can be no comparison: except for Piniella, Zambrano, Wood, Wuertz, Marmol, Theriot, Soto, Lee, DeRosa, Soriano, Ramirez, Cotts, Dempster, Blanco, Cedeno, Fontenot, Hill, Ward, Pie, Guzman, Howry, Hart, Lily, Marquis and Marshall, the 2008 Cubs are an entirely different team than the one that dropped three straight games to a NL West team in the playoffs last year.
Don’t disinterestedly wander away from your project, Cub fans. That’s not very Chicago. And Chicago is the name on that team, if not your vehicle stickers.
Bot 7: Twins 0 Sox 0. Blackburn has a one-hitter going and Johnny Danks has a two-hitter. I keep forgetting to breathe. Gentleman Jim Thome up…Sox 1B coach Harold Baines can’t hang with the pressure either, he’s in the hospital with an ulcerated stomach lining.. Thome takes Blackburn’s high sinker mistake DEEP to center! Sox 1 Twins 0…Konerko up…(best wishes, Harold)…Twins pen wakes up…Konerko 2-2..roller 4-3, 1 out…Junior up – DOUBLE off the wall…Brian Anderson pinchrunning, crowd going apeshit…Griffey gunned down Cuddyer at home on a popup to center back in the fifth, Pierzynski still has Cuddyer’s cleatmarks on his melon…the Cuban Missile has been rolled out to the plate…In the Twins dugout, Burl Ives takes one look at Slamirez, puts down his banjo and calls for the intentional walk…2 on 1 out and out comes Blackburn for LHP Jose Mijares…AJ Pierogi is at the bat…Mijeres not looking quite in control, got an east-west problem…2-1…bouncer to first, Anderson and Ramierz advance..Juan Uribe..2-0 dirtball…line drive to Delmon Young to end the inning. Can one run hold this thing? Danks is at 93 pitches and the pen’s at 6.12 ERA in September…the answer is…no.
Top 8th: Danks is on the bump, one pitch, one out…2-2 to Harris…bouncer single to the left, and here’s Punto batting righty…Gardy pinchruns Matt Tolbert…Punto hits into a 6-4-3 TWIN KILLING!
Bot 8th: OC the OG facing Mijeres..6-3 bouncer…Dewayne Wise squibs to deep short, two out…enter closer 1.34 39/45 Joe Nathan to face Jermaine…I thought he looked rattled in game one of the Minn series, and here, I’d prefer him to projectile-shit…LINE DRIVE to left!…Jim Thome up, desperately trying to figure out how to hit a solo home run with one man on…2-1 fastball..3-1…fly to Gomez, out of the inning.
Bobby.
Kubel in for Cuddyer…Swisher in at first…Bobby’s hitting 98…”2″-2..CURVEBALL K, get back in that dugout Kubel…Span up…BOUNCER TO SWISHER 2 OUT…BRIAN ANDERSON CXATCHES ALEXEI CASILLA’S FLY BALL AND THIS IS HOW YOU CELEBRATE YOU MINNESOTA DOUCHEBAGS! ALL GODDAMN SEASON LONG WITH YOUR BULLSHIT FLARES AND CHOPPING THE BALL OFF A CONCRETE HOME PLATE AND WHAT DID IT GET YOU? A PLANE TICKET! TAKE 94 WEST TO 194 AND FOLLOW THE SIGNS TO O’HARE! GOODBYE!
(Four Swings, 16 RBI: Alexei Ramirez, The Grand-Slammingest Rookie In Baseball)
Update (Top 5th) : Sox 1 Tigers 1 With the whole season on the line, Gavin Floyd just delivered big. To get out of the fifth with runners on first and third and one out, Floyd dealt a neckbreaking curve that not only sent Granderson back to the dugout but kept Octavio Dotel in the bullpen.
Update: (Top 6th) With 95 pitches, Floyd faces Maggs…punches him out looking..Miguel Cabrera up…0-2..1-2..line drive double to L Ctr gap..105 pitches…in the dirt, AJ holds on to the pierogi…line drive straight to Uribe who sucks it up two down…Ryan Raeburn up…taps a dribbler to Floyd who drops the ball then overthrows to Konerko, TWO E1s, Cabrera scores…Det 2 Sox 1…Ozzie’s leaving him in…Inge up…2-0…now an IW…two runners on, two out. C Dusty Ryan up…2-2…swing and a miss for Floyd’s 8th K…
UPDATE: Bot 6th in for Cle: Bobby Seay to face Jim Thome..Dye at first, no out…Thome struck out and I just noticed I lost a bunch of this blog post…well, we’ll live…Bobby Seay IWs Konerko with 1 out and Dye on second…two on, one out, and one Ken Griffey, Jr. is at the plate…Cle 2 Sox 2…1-0..amost the third Cleveland wild pitch in this game ends up as ball 2…3-0…take your base, you magnificent .342 OPS questionable acquisition…bags juiced for Alexei…SLAM SLAM SLAM SLAM SLAM SLAM SLAM SLAM SLAM SLAM SLAM Alexei Ramirez has sent Gary Glover’s flat heater ten rows back in center…Sox 6 Det 2…AJ with a standup double and Alexei has broken the White Sox Major League Baseball rookie record with 4 Grand Slams…Cuba Libre!
UPDATE: Top 7: Floyd Out, Matt Thornton in as Steve Stone leaves the broadcast booth for religious reasons, happy new year Stoney…hell, Happy New Year as well to GC, David Roth, Ben Schwartz, Jon Solomon, and whatever other CSTB Red Sea Pedestrians I forgot….hey, who’s gonna read this now, anyway?…Thornton out after giving up a hit, it’s Octavio Dotel with a four-run lead…which Dotel will we get? The kind we need grand slams to endure, no doubt…although last outing was the only bright spot in a mauling at the hands of Cleveland liveblogged in these very pages…facing Sheff with Granderson at second…2-2…line drive right to Brian Anderson, two out…Maggs up…2-2…Dotel showing control…hit the corner, didnt get the call…3-2…fly to Dye Tigers buh-bye.
UPDATE:Bot 7: Wise flies out, Dye to Maggs at the track, 2 out…paging Jim Thome, Jim Thome to the plate…3-2…K. Dare I worry about gentleman Jim in tomorrow’s playoff against the Twins? Dare I shut my goddamn mouth?
UPDATE: Top 8: Linebrink punches out Cabrera on a check swing..Thames up…swings at a strike 3 dirtball, two out…Raeburn up..Linebrink is definitely dealing, got a serious cut and is owning the upper zone..splitter falls off the table like broccoli for the dog…grounder up the middle. Damn you Ryan Raeburn and your gameshow-host last name…Inge up…got him looking!
UPDATE: Bot 8: 4-1 3.48 Aquilino Llllllllopez is in to face Paulie , Fly 7 out…Anderson up…one more dirtball for a frantic Dusty Ryan, who by now is actually as well as putatively Dusty…inside slider strike 3…Alexei up to madhouse cheers…the Cuban Missile goes 1-2…shovels out another dirtball off the mound to a bobbling Santiago for a single…AJ is up…Alexei steals second on Ryan, who, after taking off his mask looks like he just bought Wachovia stock this morning… AJ doubles down 1B line, Alexei scores Cle 2 Sox 7 …Juan Uribe up and ANOTHER wild pitch for #3 advancing AJ to 3rd…Uribe taps a nubber to Raeburn who bobbles and Uribe reaches on an E4…AJ scores….Cle 2 Sox 8…Cabrera strikes out swinging
UPDATE: Top 9: DJ Carrasco is behind the steel wheels…Jeff Larish in for the emotionally devastated Dusty Ryan strikes out swinging…Santiago…Carrasco’s segue from “Dayvan Cowboy” to Ted Nugent’s “Stranglehold” confuses Santiago and he strikes out swinging…Granderson flies out to center an the WHITE SOX ARE TIED FOR THE LEAD IN THE AL CENTRAL.
Hey…is that champagne you guys? You guys up there in the Metrodome? Yeah, that’s champagne, isn’t it? Heh. Yeah, I wouldn’t pop those corks just yet, not when you’ve got a business meeting in Chicago tomorrow. You guys remember how to play ball in a real ballpark? It might come in handy if you did.
(Sound check’s at three and two drink tickets per musician)
Tensions are high along the Illinois-Wisconsin border following the Milwaukee Brewers’ September 28th clinching of the National League Wild Card. Chicago musician Ted Wulfers was the first to fall victim to the regional instability when he was expelled from a long-running performance engagement at a Milwaukee TGI Fridays.
Jason George of the Chicago Tribune reports:
Ted Wulfers never thought that singing Steve Goodman’s “Go Cubs Go” could get you fired, but that’s just what happened to the Chicago musician over the weekend. Wulfers was scheduled to perform Sunday at a TGI Friday’s inside Milwaukee’s Miller Park. But he was uninvited last week. The reason? The last time Wulfers performed there in July, he played “Go Cubs Go” after a Cubs victory over the Brewers.
It was not taken kindly by the Brewers fans,” said a spokeswoman for TGI Friday’s. “Friday’s and the Brewers made the decision not to have this band back this year.”
Wulfers, who sang the national anthem in May at Miller Park, said he had no idea Brewers fans would be upset with “just one chorus” from “Go Cubs Go.”
“Basically I had compared this to playing ‘Free Bird’—the crowd just kept asking for it,” he said, while conceding the crowd was mostly Cubs fans.
“I understand the Brewers are trying to fight for the wild card,” Wulfers said before Milwaukee beat the Cubs on Sunday to secure a playoff spot. “I’m just kind of the guy being kicked in the backside for no reason. I’ve been a Cubs fan and a Brewers fan all my life.”
In a do-or-die bid, Mark Buehrle did. He smothered the Tribe for the Sox’ first win in six games to try and force a tiebreaker with the Twins. Tomorrow the Pale Hose must face the Tigers at home to make up a Sept. 14th rainout. A Sox victory over the Tigers will put them in a tie for the AL Central with the Twins and force a one-game playoff on Tuesday, also at home. As of this writing, the Tigers may start former South Sider Freddy Garcia, which would force the Sox to light up the winning pitcher of their own 2005 World Series Game 4. There could be worse prospects given that Garcia was shelled by KC last week in his second start since shoulder surgery in 2007.
During today’s final trip to the Cell for the season, I couldn’t help but be floored by the 39 years of consummate professionalism provided by Sox organist Nancy Faust. Take the following quiz for a trip into the musical mind of a national treasure.
Match the Cleveland Indian with the Nancy Faust musical tag. Answers are below.
* There should be some kind of award handed out for Ms. Fausts’ incredible stretch in this one for the Cleveland catcher tying in the 1973 Robert DeNiro star turn in Bang The Drum Slowly, the story of a troubled backstop not named Jeff Torborg.
The Maker’s Mark and Blue Moon have been choppered in. The Ricobone’s with Spinach is on board. The liveblog… begins
2nd: Sox 1 Indians 1: While I was out discovering that my neighborhood liquor store had closed its doors, Shin-Soo Choo launched one in the first, but was answered immediately in the bottom frame by Jermaine Dye. Meanwhile up in Twinkieland, the Twins are again down against the Royals 4-2 and Joe Mauer just hit into his second double play in the bottom of the 9th courtesy of The Mexecutioner Joakim Soria….
UPDATE: Twins LOSE 4-2. Mexecution couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of fellas. (Tied for) first place feels pretty good again.
UPDATE: (Top 4th) Choo has a great look on Javy, just sent one to the warning track in right but Dye pulled it in. K number five for Javy – buh-bye Jhonny Peralta – another 3-up-3-down inning for Mr. Relaxation.
UPDATE: (Bot 4th) …and Jhermaine’s got an equally good look on Zach Jhackson, threatening at the track. These two should get a room. Jackson’s (6.12 ERA) got good heat and the Sox haven’t seen him before. Just announced: Cliff Lee has been SCRATCHED for tomorrow’s start vs the Sox. Eric Wedge, the beer’s on me at the next Pere Ubu gig…Konerko just went to the track too. The forecast is for fireworks tonight.
UPDATE: (Top 5th) Garko singles up the middle…Dellucci walks, first BB for Vazquez…1 out…Javy goes 3-0 on Ben Francisco who rolls one past Juan “How Much For Parking?” Uribe – bases loaded, one out. Asdrubal Cabrera puts an inside fastball down the first base line for a bases-clearing double…Cle 4 Sox 1…but even worse, there’s activity in the bullpen. Where’s the bourbon? Jamey Carroll up…hey, a two-run double! Cle 6 Sox 1! Amid the boos, Ozzie found the bullpen, and I found the bourbon. Mmmm, bourbon. Javy out, Clayton Richard gives up another gapper …7-1 Indians…You know, the thing I admire the most about borbon is the vanilla notes in the flavor, it’s almost like having an ice-cream cone but you can’t feel your face…Garko forces Come Back Jhonny out at second and this 6R 6H 2B inning is now over. Face: can still kind of feel it.
UPDATE: (Bot 5th) AJ with a 1-out line drive single up the middle. So is this payback for the 2005 September where the Chisox almost choked their gi-normous division lead but took the last series to clinch against an almost identical Indians team? All I know for sure is this: you gotta let Ronald be Ronald. Clayton Richard: you got out of the inning. Don’t trip over Javy’s suitcase back there.
UPDATE: (Bot 6th) Brian Anderson walks…Dye srikes out looking. It is nothing short of astonishing that this tired bunch of millionaires can’t even manage to get eliminated tonight. Goddammit, lead, follow, or get me another Maker’s neat.
UPDATE: (Bot 7th) Solo bomb from Konerko. Cle 7 Sox 2. Remember that scene in The Bad Lieutennant where Harvey Ketel is watching the NLCS and Darryl Strawberry turns in one of his “patented moon shots”…to make it 11-2 Dodgers? Fists….in the air….
UPDATE: (Top 8th) Richard out, Lance Broadway in. Impromptu staging of “Cats” takes place in living room. Broadway gets into the mood by giving up a double to Garko, driving in Martinez. Cle 8 Sox 2. Actual cats not amused. Face: numb.
UPDATE: (Bot 8th) At some point during the Tony awards, RHP Brendan Donnelly took the bump…Juan Uribe reaches by beating a roller up the 1B line…Carbrera sends a wicked slice double down the RF foul line, Uribe on 3rd..Dewayne Wise up…Donnelly’s stuff is on the dead side..3-2…struck out looking. Dye sac flies to Choo in right, Uribe beats the throw for RBI #91 Cle 8 Sox 3…out goes Donnelly, in comes LHP Rafael Perez to face Jim Thome with Cabrera on third…2-2…fastball smacked to the left drives in Cabrera – Cle 8 Sox 4…Jensen Lewis in to face Konerko with one on…FIRST PITCH — POW 2 RUN SHOT TO RIGHT — PAULIE’S SECOND FOR THE NIGHT! Cle 8 Sox 6…replay looks like a changeup, drifed inside…Alexei singles on an E5 off of Carroll’s glove to bring the tying run to the plat…AJ up, 1-2 count…Ozzie yelling about Lewis balking, high fly to Sizemore in center…3 outs. Face: very numb, slightly moist.
UPDATE: (Top 9th) Welcome to the mound Scott Linebrink, who looked very much like his old self in oe of the few bright spots against Minnesota..Asdrubal Cabrera singles a chest-high slider under Konerko’s glove…Sizemore singles up the middle nearly decapitating Linebrink…Carroll lays down a 5-4 sac bunt, followed by ihntentional whalk of Choo…bags juiced..for Jhonny Peralta…fhuck. Perlata line drives to left to score Cabrera…Cle 9 Chi 6...bases loaded, Matt Thornton in, line drive single scores Sizemore…Cle 10 Sox 6…I’m sure I’d feel much worse if I wasn’t so heavily sedated…Franklin Guttierez in for Delucci, what are you worried, Wedge?…anotehr line drive to right, drives in two. Cle 12 Sox 6.
(Above: Joe Morgan delivers a withering diss to Rawly Eastwick)
Although the KC Royals obligingly restored a semblance of order to the Twin Cities blooperdome by administering an 8-1 pounding to the Twins, the hapless White Sox immediately squandered the opportunity to regain the division lead, surrendering 11-8 at home to the Indians.
John Danks (11-9) made it four innings with 7 hits and 5Ks but leading 4-3, gave up a two-run single to Shin-Soo Choo, prompting a haggard Ozzie to reach for what Joe Morgan this year dubbed “the best bullpen ever”. Unfortunately, Hang The DJ Carrasco’s immediate walk of Jhonny Peralta to load the bases loomed large over the facile Fox announcer’s June 29th estimation. At the time, the South Side appreciated Joe apparently forgetting he played on the ‘75 Big Red Machine, but we couldn’t remain in denial forever. Or even for one more batter – Morgan’s superlative was sent over the wall forever along with a Ryan Garko grand slam of a 1-0 Carrasco doucheball. The Indians went up 9-4 and never looked back.
According to the handy-dandy AL Central Outcome Matrix, the Sox could drop both games this weekend and still not be out of it as long as the Twins follow suit, forcing a Monday makeup with Detroit and a possible one-game playoff with the Twins. My head hurts. It’s Zach Jackson vs Javy “Big Game” Vazquez tonight. Although it’s against the basic principles of animal husbandry, I will stand by this team in its grave misery and live blog my way to its denoument. MacBook Pro keyboards can handle tears and bourbon, right?
White Sox, you blew a five-run lead to get swept and lose first place. This time the guilty parties were not named Dotel, Wasserman, Richard, MacDougal or Logan. Orlando Cabrera, you talked a lot of shit. And you weren’t wrong. You’re an asshole, but you weren’t wrong. Confidential to Bobby Jenks and AJ: in the future, you might want to look into the possibilities of the 1-2 curve ball. Alexei, Dye, Thome, Konerko? Yeah, the season continues in September.
Oh, and speaking of Todd Jones: Carlos Gomez? You may well be the next Rickey Henderson, but that sniffing, nuzzling, batters-box intimacy with your equipment is completely unnecessary in this post-Stonewall era. You’re just not shocking anybody.
So what happens when you’re a baseball team that never gets what you deserve — and you deserve second place?
The possible AL Central outcomes for the Chisox are bewildering, although none includes Juan Uribe picking up his boat. The following helpful table is provided to guide the faithful through the matrix.
Courtesy of the Chicago Tribune:
If Twins win…
If White Sox win…
This happens
3 games
3 games
Sox play Detroit on Monday
3 games
2 games
Twins win Central
3 games
1 game
Twins win Central
3 games
0 games
Twins win Central
2 games
3 games
Sox play Detroit on Monday
2 games
2 games
Sox play Detroit on Monday
2 games
1 game
Twins win Central
2 games
0 games
Twins win Central
1 game
3 games
Sox win Central
1 game
2 games
Sox play Detroit on Monday
1 game
1 game
Sox play Detroit on Monday
1 game
0 games
Twins win Central
0 games
3 games
Sox win Central
0 games
2 games
Sox win Central
0 games
1 game
Sox play Detroit on Monday
0 games
0 games
Sox play Detroit on Monday
If it turns out that the Sox must play Detroit on Monday in Chicago, there are four possible outcomes:
• If Sox go in 1/2 game ahead and win, Sox win Central.
• If Sox go in 1/2 game ahead and lose, Sox play Minnesota on Tuesday.
• If Sox go in 1/2 game behind and win, Sox play Minnesota on Tuesday.
• If Sox go in 1/2 game behind and lose, Twins win Central.
The 3-4-5 of the Sox order has gone 3 for 22 in these games. It took two double plays to get out of the second inning. Buehrle and Cabrera picked off Gomez at second, but didn’t get the call and Gomez came around for the winning run. Buehrle (L 14-12, 8H 3R 4BB 3K) went a good eight, settling down after a bad pair of innings, but allowed runners to screw up his look to the plate. Meanwhile, a familiar nickel-and-dime Twins contact affair of flares, bloops, broken-bat chip shots and frictionless moon bounces buried the Sox under the green concrete. For their part, the deadliest bats in the AL failed to capitalize on Blackburn (5IP, 8H 2R 2BB 2K) or get to the pen, who gave up one hit and one walk combined.
It’s a testament to baseball, that most generous and redemptive of games, that a squad this distracted could turn in a performance like this and still somehow be on top in the division. Nonetheless, it’s clear this wasn’t the right year to figure out how to beat Oakland.
Tonight, with everything on the line (everything, that is, that hasn’t been raked already into the dealer’s chip rack) the matchup is Gavin Floyd (16-8, 3.84) vs Kevin Slowey (12-11, 3.85). Get to Slowey, win the game. If Nick Swisher gets out that blow-up doll again, let me reccomend a bicycle pump this time. It’s hard enough to breathe in that bubble.
A single human hand lacks the basic equipment to point all the fingers necessary at the White Sox for their atrocious failure last night under the Big Top. First off, I know you can’t trade for Griffey and not play him in the biggest game of the year, but one can only hope Junior’s 9th inning meaningless 2-run dinger is not enough to keep him on the card tonight. Hope alone is left because as we have seen, prayer is ineffective.
The next finger goes to AJ Pierzynski, whose .200-in September bat, bases-loaded ground out in the third and following little-league rundown of Delmon Young that allowed Punto and Gomez to advance prompted the following outburst from the embattled backstop: “I fucking suck.” And so in the stony silence that follows all uncomfortable truths, we turn to the outfield.
I recommend checking for iPods under caps, because something has these guys’ attention that shouldn’t. Dye forgot how many outs there were in the 6th. Dewayne Wise threw to third instead of second. Griffey didn’t get to a Kubel fly ball in the 4th that Brian Anderson would have easily handled.
Then there’s Javy being Javy and Ozzie being Ozzie letting Javy be Javy. In the fourth he gave up a triple, double, hit and bunt singles with a pokey parade of stuff down the middle. Waiters at the Drake Hotel get less of the plate (that’s a shout out to my grandfather) than Vazquez (L 12-15, 4IP, 7H 5R 3K) did last night. One thing we have learned: when Vazquez gave up that slam to Johnny Damon in the ‘04 ALCS, some in New York mumbled he was preoccupied with travel plans to Puerto Rico. Despite being Yankees fans, these people were not wrong. And Kenny’s got him until 2010 at some ungodly sum I don’t even want to look up. Play the World Series in July and that won’t be a problem I guess.
Going for the pen in the fifth is never how you prefer to go, but when Boone Motherfucking Logan is in the mix, it’s time to consider dragging Bobby Jenks out there instead. Holy mother of cock shit balls, put this waste of rosin back on the short bus already. I know he didn’t give up the only bomb (thank you Clayton Richard) and I know Matt Thornton is a human being that needs rest, and I know Scott Linebrink is a shadow of his former self and I know there’s no bullpen door in the Metrodome and so no opportunity to use a padlock, but Boone Fucking Logan? Somewhere, a meth lab is missing its lookout. Return him from whence he came — please.
And thank you, Carlos Quentin, for your fire, your strength and your impeccable Stanford-educated judgement. You showed that bat, all right. Showed it good. Hope you’re using it for the dry swings.
It’s not over, but it sure looks like it should be. This team, lacking a pissed-off older guy in the far end of the dugout, is playing like a team that lacks a pissed-off older guy in the far end of the dugout. I doubt that whatever hell Ozzie has left to dish out is going to turn any heads. What’s he going to do, go to the media and insinuate…well, never mind.
Seriously, enough with these pests. They’ve got more road miles than Magellan, the Indians and Rays took turns kicking their ass and when they got home, it was to Jesse Ventura’s state. Please. Denard Span? Kid’s got no big game experience, probably doesn’t even understand that it’s not normal to play big league baseball under a hefty bag. Kubel? He’s 0.95 agaisnt Javy, and his name sounds like a potato dish. Forget him. Mauer? Well, you can always walk him. Gomez? Swings at anything, already used up his homer against Javy this year. Morneau? Walk him, too. Casilla? He’s .143 against Horacio Ramirez, how good can he be? And Scott Baker. Come on. Totally hittable. Gets rattled with runners on. Owned by Cabrera and AJ. We got this one.
I’d take a page out of the Schwartz playbook and live-blog the game, but they don’t have wi-fi at the prayer meeting I’ll be at.
(L to R: Henry Paulson, Lou Piniella. It looks like Lou’s not falling for it, either.)
“The fans here in New York never seem to amaze me,” said Derek Jeter on camera after tonight’s final game at the Bronx cathedral. While Mr. November may have misspoke, I can confidently state that here in Chicago, baseball fans take very seriously their duty to drop jaws and boggle minds.
Take Former Goldman Sachs CEO, US Treasury Secretary and Chicago Cubs fan Henry Paulson. To the shock of nobody, Hank hails from suburban Barrington Hills, Illinois. Right now, as you may have heard, his pals on Wall Street are in a tough spot, and Hank thinks you should cover them — or else — who knows what will happen? (Sound of glass figurine “falling” off shelf and breaking.)
It’s not even Monday yet and the original $700 Billion bailout figure is already being revised upward to reach the Big T. One million million bucks. Better hurry up and give him what he wants, because apparently Hank’s from a really bad part of Barrington Hills.
Oh, and when you pay up, you don’t get to ask where it goes. In fact, nobody does, not even a court:
Sec. 8. Review.
Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.
Do I even have to mention that not one of his Street pals loses a dime on the deal? Is it going to be news to anybody that the invisible hand of the “free market”’s busy proctological explorations somehow don’t reach to Winnetka, IL or Fairfield County, CT?
Forgive me for recognizing a class war when I see it. This season I’ve had a jolly time at the expense of Cub Nation, but things are getting a shade more serious. It may well be that an accident of birth or a lapse of taste has made you a Cub fan. But it can no longer be ignored that too many of the people you’re high-fiving would have you killed for food when it comes to that.
At the poker table, they call a seven a “walking stick”. As it happens, that isn’t a bad physical description of rookie White Sox 2B Alexei Ramirez. But the real story with the Cuban Missile is the (war)head atop the bones. It makes no difference to the Narrowest Ramirez if he’s facing a guy for the first or twenty-first time – at the plate, he stays behind whatever he gets wherever he gets it and slaps, bangs, chops and crushes his way onto the scoreboard as if Kruschev never pounded that podium with his shoe.
Like award-winner Ichiro Suzuki in 2001, it’s true that swing-happy Alexei’s a Rookie of the Year contender with an advantage: seasons of proven experience playing for an island nation. While award contender Evan Longoria might find that allowance a tad reminiscent of Chinese “womens”‘ gymnastics, the important mystery in Alexei’s past is only this: if you take ball four in Cuba, what does the Castro regime do to you, anyway?
In a six-run fourth inning, Ramirez followed an AJ Pierzynski battle with two aboard resulting in a walk to load ‘em up. His own el gato y el ratón epic against Brian Bannister (L, 8-16, 5IP, 8H, 7ER) had Ramirez fouling off five straight after a 2-1 count before he sent a flat breaking ball into deep left field over David DeJesus’ head, over the wall and into the record books – the third grand slam for Ramirez (tying the rookie single-season record) and the 11th for the White Sox (tying a franchise record).
Forced as they are into regular trips to Chicago, Cubs fans already know that travel enriches the mind and spirit. There’s nothing like a journey to open up one’s mind to new perspectives and notions of the world, and when the destination is one where persons of color are found unsupervised, well all the better. The SUV doors have locks, after all, and how better to pick up a stray phrase or two in the help’s native language?
But there are limits to the benefits of travel. No good can come of allowing the staff to wander willy-nilly - it breeds discontent, and even heresy.
There’s no doubt the Cubs enjoyed their two-day stay in the Brewers‘ home clubhouse at Miller Park, and not just because they allowed only one hit in two victories over Houston.
After his no-hitter Sunday, Carlos Zambrano went as far as to say: “This is a beautiful ballpark. Gosh, I wish we could have a new ballpark.”
I only have one question: will the Applebee’s Tequila Chicken stations be distributed evenly throughout the new seating scheme, or will the bleachers have to make do with only the salad bar?
Days Since White Sox Last Took The Field: 3 Inches Of Rainfall In Chicago During Break: 10.4 Ark Manifest (Per Species): 2 Number Of Doubleheaders In Past Week: 2 White Sox Lead In AL Central (games): 1.5 Years On Steve Stone’s New Sox TV Contract: 6 Ken Harrelson’s Age When Stone’s Contract Expires: 73 Remaining Games Against Blue Jays: 0 White Sox Magic Number: 13 Games Remaining In Season: 13 Percentage Of Magic In Above Number: 0 Doubleheader Sweeps Of Tigers 2008 : 1 Average Runs Per Game Production From Quentin/Konerko On DL: 1.2 Record Since Both On DL: 3-1 Average Run Differential Since Both On DL: 2.75 Ken Griffey, Jr. Career Doubles: 500 Javier Vazquez Career Strikeouts: 2000 Jim Thome Career Home Runs: 539 Bombs Given Up By Bobby Jenks To Magglio Ordonez In First Game: 1 Bombs Given Up By Bobby Jenks 2008: 3 Number Of Shrimp Bobby Jenks Can Place In Mouth At Once: 7 Earned Runs Given Up In Second Game By Kenny Rogers By 5th: 5 Rogers Pickoff Throws At Alexei Ramirez On First: 8 Outs Resulting: 0 Shutout Innings By Chisox LHP John Danks: 6 Number Of Pitches Thrown By Octavio Dotel To Marcus Thames: 1 8th Inning Game-Tying Grand Slams By Marcus Thames: 1 Batting Average, Marcus Thames: .240 Minimum Number Of Shutouts Blown By Chisox Bullpen (2008): 3 Times Dewayne Wise Has Faced Kyle Farnsworth, 2008: 2 Grand Slams Given Up By Kyle Farnsworth To Dewayne Wise: 1 Number Of Grand Slams (8th Inning): 2 Number Of Games On Upcoming White Sox Road Trip: 10 Games Scheduled In Carpeted Plastic Bubble: 3 Number of Hands Anxiously Cradling Face And Head : 2
I realize the Jays are red hot and that it’s a clear-cut case of bias to portray yesterday’s twin doubleheader losses as less the result of good Toronto baseball than bad White Sox baseball. But it’s also unfair to call for the Jays’ visas to be revoked, and I’m going to go ahead and do that too.
Losses and one-game division lead aside, the unending series of September Sox injuries is the bigger story. The meatwagon pulled up twice more to 35th and Shields, first to haul away 1B Paul Konerko with a sprained right MCL. Listed as “week to week”, chances are he’s done and somehow the Sox have to do without his .356-in-the-past-28-games production. There are worse things to happen than having Nick Swisher play first, but taking away Paulie’s late-season bat is as serious a development as lung cancer. Also lost to an un-noticed fractured wrist injury (such a syndrome heretofore known as an “Angry Carlos”) was reserve infielder Chris Getz. Losing his speed suggests a pinch-running problem may result in late-inning baserunning work for Junior, and nobody wants that. Then again, you gotta walk before you (pinch-)run.
The afternoon makeup for the rained-out matchup on Monday had both Javier Vazquez and AJ Burnett throwing no-hit ball for four innings before Lyle Overbay got to Javy with doubles in the fourth and sixth, driving in Wells and Lind in the later frame. The Sox answered in the bottom half with a Jim Thome sac fly driving in Pierzynski, whose presence on third came only courtesy of a blown double-play throwing error by John McDonald followed by a Burnett wild pitch. Burnett suffocated the South Siders with 7Ks, 1H and 1BB. He wasn’t pulled until the 8th, but Swisher, Uribe and Ramirez never noticed, producing Ks or weak grounders in the 9th.
The second game matched up struggling fifth starter Clayton Richard against Jesse Litsch. Leadoff man Marco Scutaro sent Richard’s third pitch over the wall, and things didn’t improve from there. In the fifth, not far from the infield spot where Jose Contreras tore his achilles last month, Konerko cut off a Jermaine Dye throw of an Alex Rios RBI single (courtesy of “Hang The” DJ Carrasco). Konerko’s throw to second put Rios in a rundown, but he paid for it with the use of his knee. Down 5-2 at the end of the inning, the Sox never recovered and Litsch went through 7 with 6K 6H 2R and 2BB.
(Above: National Leaguer Ross Barnes scoffs at small ball)
According to Baseball-Reference.com, Gary Sheffield’s grand slam off of Oakland’s Gio Gonzalez in last night’s 14-8 Tigers win was the quarter-millionth home run in big league baseball history. Number 1, according to historian David Vincent came in 1876 by the Chicago White Stockings’ infielder Ross Barnes off of Cincinnati Red Stockings’ Cherokee Fisher, who may or may not have been “bad for the Jews.”
Not until April 30, 1970, did the total reach 100,000. Atlanta’s Hal King is credited with the milestone hit out of many that day with a homer off the Cubs’ Ferguson Jenkins. It took nearly three decades for the list to double to 200,000, with Paul O’Neill awarded the honors for taking then-Marlins pitcher Livan Hernandez deep on June 12, 1999.
The final 50,000 homers, by contrast, have come in a relative flurry of about 9 1/2 years. The list stood at 249,996 entering the night, with four games scheduled to start around the same time at 7:05 p.m. ET. Jason Bay started off the home run parade with a first-inning solo shot off Edwin Jackson in Boston’s 3-0 shutout of Tampa Bay, but the next three homers came in Detroit — all of them off Tigers bats, and all off Gonzalez.
Magglio Ordonez and Sheffield homered in the opening inning to put the total at 249,999. An inning later, Sheffield stepped to the plate with the bases loaded and drove a fastball deep to left for the 496th homer of his career. With the grand slam, he earned himself a place on a Major League homer list before he joins the 500-homer club.
If your family is anything like mine, then the phenomenon of the substance abuser finding Jesus won’t be new to you. This is where years of struggle with demon rum or Colombian marching powder finally are brought to a halt only after a holy epiphany. While the act of trading one addiction for another may not do much to reduce the net tension at Thanksgiving dinner, what the swap lacks in closure can be made up in terms of paychecks or foregone auto body work.
Or on-field production. In a way, the Bears are experiencing the same transition, at least at the RB position. After leading his ten-point underdog team to a 29-13 upset of the Colts, Tulane rookie RB Matt Forte made sure the TV audience knew who his lord and savior was. And unlike 2005’s troubled draft pick RB Cedric Benson, Forte did not name his own lawyer. The long-legged back went 123 yards on 23 carries including a 50-yard TD run and displayed a ferret’s touch for finding the holes.
Forte had 100 yards by the half and the Bears were up 15-6. Manning looked lighter and jumpier than his old self, harrassed by a reconstituted blitzing Bears defense for two sacks. But the next (and last) Colts score was set up by Devin Hester’s unlearned lesson: indulgence is the mother of disaster. Receiving the kickoff, Hester loitered nonchalantly in the endzone a quarter second too long before starting his run and got tripped up by Melvin Bullet at the Bears 2. A 3-and-out and a Robbie Gould punt to the 50 put Manning back in the no-huddle driver’s seat and he finished the drive by hitting Reggie Wayne for his only TD pass of the evening.
Kyle Orton went 13/21 with 150 yards – perhaps nothing to write home about but nonetheless including receptions to every receiver in a white jersey, including three to Forte. Orton forced nothing, and looked unrattled in the pocket despite a crummy St. Clair vs. Freeney matchup at left tackle.
Healthy D? Suckless passing? A running game? It looks to this reporter like a 7-9 season may actually turn out closer to 9-7. Unless of course, He smiles upon the Bears further.
(Above: Lucas Oil Stadium, home of the Indianapolis Colts…for now)
Of all the insults to intelligence that form the foundation of right-wing politics, none is more disingenuous than the ad nauseam lip service to economic self-reliance. The government handout, according to today’s on-camera Republicans, is mortal sin. To mess with the almighty free market’s apportionment of haves and have-nots only creates mobs of panhandlers and welfare cheats in cahoots with Big Government. Conservatives alone, we are assured, posses the altruism and moral courage to protect hard-working taxpayers from these outrageous takings.
While most lies thrive in the dark, the genius of right-wing lies is in the fact that like algae, they do better under hot lights. Certainly the minute the cameras are turned off and the imagined crumb-elbowed stew bum clawing at the public purse is replaced by a real well-heeled business owner – perhaps one who owns a sports team – the Republican will always eagerly offer up the uterus of the body politic to the gentleman caller. Conservatives, so named for the myriad cons they serve, see the stigma of hated government dependency marked only upon those who seek help a few hundred bucks at a time. Those who forego their own bootstraps in pursuit of something more ambitious than food and shelter – say a nine-figure grab for public lucre – receive very different treatment. Far from contempt, these handout solicitations are met by the right with applause and parted legs.
In tomorrow’s NFL season opener, the Indianapolis Colts will host the Chicago Bears in their new $717 million dollar, 63,000-seat Lucas Oil Stadium. The Colts are understandably proud of their project. It will host the 2012 Super Bowl. It has the world’s largest sliding glass wall. It has a rare and appealing red-brick architecture inspired by the classic 1920s-era park field house. Its look serves both as a signifier of midwestern athleticism and a nearly-dead national notion of public space.
It may as well recall the public sphere, because 87% – $612 million dollars - of the bill for this 1.8 million square-foot private building’s construction is being footed by the Indiana taxpayers through state bonds. The securities are unofficially named “Peyton Manning Bonds” mainly because “Jeff Saturday Bonds” just wouldn’t have the same cachet.
That Colts owner Jim Irsay and Indiana Republican Governor Mitch Daniels managed to come to an agreement as to which ankle each would hold while shaking down the Indiana public should be no surprise. Daniels is the former director of President George W. Bush’s Office of Management and Budget, bagman for an administration that never found a public dollar it couldn’t privatize.
And Irsay is the son of Bob Irsay, who infamously settled the team’s last stadium squabble by moving the Colts from Baltimore to Indy under the cover of darkness one night in 1984.
2002 was the year Irsay the younger, known for his boomer-bohemian pretensions, shelled out $2.54 million for the original manuscript of Jack Kerouac’s “On The Road”. That he did this while simultaneously pleading poormouth to the team’s city and state and threatened to put the Colts on Route 66 to California betrayed a family resemblance that the locals took seriously.
It’s already cost Indy plenty that Irsay never made good on his threats, but it won’t be until tomorrow that Colts fans will have the chance to tally up the real bottom line. And once the tickets, beer, hot dogs and foam rubber fingers are added up, it won’t be Irsay who took any risk. It doesn’t make Indianapolis particularly special among NFL franchise cities faced with similar solicitation, but in an election year, it’s worth remembering that Republicans don’t hate all handouts. Just the ones that put food on the table.
