Baseball America Tidbits from July 1993

by Geoff Young on Oct 21, 2002 (Comments Off) Comments

It doesn’t get much better than that. We went out to dinner after the Chargers beat the Raiders in Oakland (Michael Vick? Yeah, he’s good; but so are LaDainian Tomlinson and Drew Brees, thank you very much) and didn’t get back till the third inning. By then, the score was 7-5 Angels and both starters had departed. Of course, both teams battled before the Angels ended up winning, 11-10. Yep, this is shaping up to be a classic.

A few thoughts:

  • Francisco Rodriguez’ performance (three perfect innings, four strikeouts) was awesome, but so was Chad Zerbe’s for the Giants. He deserves a great deal of credit for keeping San Francisco in the contest.
  • Tim Salmon. What else can I say? He had a dream game. I’ve been a fan of his since watching him in spring training in 1993, and it’s good to see him shine.
  • Barry Bonds has gone way beyond exorcising his playoff demons. He is now systematically and thoroughly abusing them. That bomb off Troy Percival in the ninth was something to behold: one of those shots that everyone will tell their grandkids they saw in person whether they really did or not.
  • I was glad to see the Angels bounce back after Ben Weber had surrendered the lead in the fifth. Weber looked sharp again but everything he served up found a hole.

In other news, thanks to my buddy Dan, I now find myself in the possession of a great many issues of Baseball America from the early ’90s. I don’t know how many issues fit in a 12″ x 9″ x 12″ box, but I’ll bet it’s a lot. At any rate, I’ve perused one from July 1993 and I thought I’d share a few nuggets:

Oh yeah, this was also right after Jose Canseco had made his one and only big-league pitching appearance. People were still laughing about it (and the homer off his head weeks earlier); they didn’t yet realize he’d blown out his elbow.

I could go on for hours about this stuff, and you’ll probably hear more tidbits from years gone by over the winter, but for now I’ll leave you with something more current: 2002 Win Shares Leaders (Baseball Musings). Enjoy…

Running Commentary on Game 1 of the 2002 World Series

by Geoff Young on Oct 20, 2002 (0) Comments

Don’t worry, I’m not planning to make a habit of this. But it is the first game of the World Series and I just can’t help myself. Yep, a running commentary of the game.

Band practice canceled. Drummer’s kid came down with the flu. So here I am with the laptop, ready to watch Game 1 of the World Series. I can’t tell you how cool it is to watch Joe Buck and Tim McCarver move their lips without having to hear them. Got Jon Miller and Joe Morgan dialed in on the radio. They’re talking about the upcoming game. Fox, meantime, is running some goofy video montage. Do they really think this series is all about the rally monkey? Ugh.

Radio Shack is an official sponsor of the World Series. As the late Chris Farley would say, “Well, la-di-frickin-da.&”

Boston Public preview. Not even Jeri Ryan can get me to watch that show. Miller and Morgan, meantime, are talking about Mike Scioscia. Were Scioscia and Dusty Baker ever teammates with the Dodgers? I can’t remember.

5:02 PM Angels take the field. Crowd goes absolutely nuts. Yeah, baseball is dead.

5:04 PM Tsuyoshi Shinjo is the Giants’ DH? Ack… Bowl of popcorn my wife gave me two minutes ago is empty before the first pitch.

5:05 PM Jarrod Washburn throws strike one to Kenny Lofton. We’re underway.

5:07 PM Lofton strikes out on a pitch in his eyes. Washburn’s fastball is coming in 91-93 MPH.

5:08 PM Talk to each other, people. Troy Glaus and David Eckstein nearly collide chasing a foul ball. Glaus catches it. Two out. Okay, I guess it is a bit loud there.

5:10 PM Morgan refers to Washburn as Jaret Wright (whom the Padres, as a man whose opinion I respect points out, would do well to sign). Washburn fans Jeff Kent on a high fastball. He’s dealing.

5:13 PM Jason Schmidt throws strike one to Eckstein. Fastball, 95 MPH.

5:14 PM Strike one to Darin Erstad. Fastball, 97 MPH.

5:17 PM Tim Salmon strikes out on a high 97-MPH fastball to end the inning. Both pitchers are looking real good early.

5:20 PM Barry Bonds, first World Series at-bat. Ball one, high. Fastball low, ball two. High fastball fouled at the plate, 2-1.

5:21 PM Gone. 1-0, Giants. Unreal.

5:23 PM How does Benito Santiago get his bat on that ball? Weak grounder to third; one out.

5:24 PM Reggie Sanders smokes one to right. 2-0. Bonds, we learn, is the 26th player to homer in his first World Series at-bat. Andruw Jones was the last, in 1996.

5:25 PM Morgan is questioning Washburn’s overreliance on fastballs. Washburn starts throwing more breaking balls.

5:30 PM Shot of fans holding a sign advocating Garret Anderson for MVP. No comment needed.

5:31 PM Anderson strikes out on a nice change-up.

5:32 PM Schmidt throws Glaus a filthy slider. He’s ahead in the count, 0-2. Schmidt is going to be tough to hit tonight.

5:34 PM Not that tough to hit. Glaus hammers an 0-2 hanger into the Anaheim bullpen. That was a brutal pitch. Glaus is the 27th player to homer in his first World Series at-bat.

5:36 PM Brad Fullmer grounds a single between first and second. Scott Spiezio comes to bat. Fox shows footage of his band, Sandfrog.

5:38 PM Fly ball to center, two outs. Spiezio got good wood on that ball. For a guy throwing in the high-90s, Schmidt isn’t getting the ball by a lot of guys. Great jump by Fullmer, stolen base. Schmidt forgot about him.

5:39 PM Replay shows Fullmer was out on a terrific throw by Santiago. Fox runs an instant poll asking viewers whether Baker should challenge the call. Oh, wait…

5:41 PM Danny DeVito is in the house.

5:42 PM Bengie Molina flies to deep left to end the inning. Schimdt jumped ahead of him, 0-2, before running the count full and ultimately retiring him. Those extra pitches will come back to haunt him. Schmidt needs to be more efficient.

5:45 PM Shinjo up to bat. I wonder if Baker considered sticking Livan Hernandez or Russ Ortiz in the DH slot. Washburn bounces a 55-foot change-up.

5:47 PM Shinjo strikes out. He looks overmatched. Tommy Lasorda is in the house.

5:48 PM Lofton flies to deep center on a bad pitch from Washburn. A better hitter does damage with that one. Fox informs me that Scioscia and Baker were teammates from 1980-1983. New motto for Fox Sports: Not particularly good but not entirely useless, either.

5:50 PM Washburn bounces another one in front of the plate. Rich Aurilia grounds the next pitch to his counterpart to end the inning. Eckstein doesn’t appear to have much of an arm. Wonder if that’ll come into play on a relay during the series.

5:54 PM Are you kidding me? Adam Kennedy again. Misses a homer to right by about a foot, ends up with a double. Eckstein lays down a good bunt that just rolls foul.

5:55 PM Eckstein shows bunt, pulls back and swings over a slider in the dirt. Ugly.

5:56 PM How does Eckstein get his bat on that pitch? Fastball, 98 MPH, in the eyes. Just gets a piece of it.

5:57 PM Eckstein bounces an inside fastball to second base, Kennedy moves to third. Nice at-bat.

5:59 PM Erstad strikes out on a fastball in his eyes. When did Schmidt turn into Curt Schilling? A quick look at the stats suggests a possible answer to my rhetorical question: age 29, same age as when Schilling turned into Schilling.

6:00 PM Salmon flies to center. End of inning. Anaheim doesn’t score. Wonder if Kennedy makes it to third on his own if he gets out of the box a little sooner.

6:04 PM Jim Edmonds is in the house. Kent grounds to short. Eckstein’s arm makes me nervous.

6:06 PM Bonds strikes out on a fastball up and in. Bizarre to see him go out of the strike zone. Nice pitching by Washburn. Good to see him be aggressive.

6:11 PM Washburn loses Sanders on a 3-1 breaking ball. Not the worst thing in the world with J.T. Snow up next.

6:15 PM Snow keeps fouling off 3-2 offerings. Washburn is up to 69 pitches.

6:16 PM Snow walks on the 10th pitch of the at-bat. Bases loaded. How can Santiago, Sanders, and Snow be giving Washburn more trouble than Kent and Bonds?

6:17 PM David Bell pops into the Bermuda triangle behind first. Salmon takes charge, inning over.

6:21 PM Anderson flails at a change-up in the dirt. He can’t hit that pitch. Schmidt comes back with a fastball, which Anderson whacks into right for a base hit. Sanders plays it nicely to hold him to a single.

6:24 PM Glaus hits a 2-1 pitch a mile high. Kent puts it away.

6:26 PM Fox flashes its first rally monkey graphic. Fans outside of California wonder what took so long.

6:29 PM It’s been a while since I’ve seen Schmidt pitch, but I don’t remember his change-up being this good.

6:32 PM After seeing four straight change-ups, Spiezio rips a fastball inside the first-base line for a double. He’s been right on Schmidt’s hard stuff all night. Nice play again by Sanders to keep Anderson at third.

6:35 PM Molina grounds weakly to third. End of inning. Both teams are missing opportunities.

6:39 PM Shinjo singles to right-center. Yo, T., you’re making me look bad. Then again, who’s to say that Hernandez or Ortiz wouldn’t have gotten a hit there?

6:42 PM Washburn comes up and in to Lofton, who doesn’t glare back at Washburn.

6:47 PM Washburn falls behind Kent, 2-0. Might want to throw a strike here. He does; Kent bounces to short again. Eckstein bobbles it, recovers, and shotputs the ball over to first. Inning over. By my count Washburn has thrown 87 pitches through five.

6:51 PM Schmidt gets Kennedy to swing at a fastball off the plate for his fifth strikeout. Follows a change-up with a 97-MPH heater. That’s nasty.

6:52 PM Eckstein beats out a grounder to Kent’s right. Kent makes a diving stop but throws late. Maybe it’s me, but that looks like a makeable play.

6:56 PM Erstad is right on Schmidt’s fastball. Keeps fouling ‘em back.

6:57 PM Hit-and-run single up the middle. Aurilia covering second almost snags the line drive. Eckstein takes third. Salmon up.

6:59 PM Salmon pops one foul off first base. Snow falls down, gets back up, and makes the catch. Damn, that was a nice recovery. I’m a little surprised to see Salmon hacking at the first pitch. He’s usually pretty selective.

7:01 PM Anderson strikes out on three pitches, the last of which is a 96-MPH fastball just above the shoetops. Angels blow another opportunity.

7:04 PM Bonds hammers the first pitch down the first base line. Spiezio makes a nice play on a tough hop, flips to Washburn. One out.

7:07 PM Santiago strikes out. That’s five for Washburn.

7:10 PM Sanders drills a single to left. He’s seeing the ball well.

7:13 PM Washburn falls behind Snow, 3-0. Throws a strike, then serves up a homer to left-center on his 106th pitch of the night. Snow, who has struggled against southpaws throughout his career, looked very comfortable against Washburn, who now leaves in favor of Brendan Donnelly.

7:17 PM Good movement on Donnelly’s slider. Looks like it’s breaking a little early, though.

7:21 PM Aagh! Beelzebud is in the house. Make it go away. Please, for the love of all that is good in the world, make it go away.

7:22 PM Glaus hits another bomb to left, 4-2. He’s gotta be close to a 50-homer season.

7:24 PM Fullmer walks. First free pass issued by Schmidt. Nobody out, tying run at the plate.

7:26 PM Spiezio pops the first pitch high to right field. Like Salmon, he’s usually pretty selective. Seems like a few of these guys are pressing a bit. Felix Rodriguez and Aaron Fultz are getting ready in the San Francisco bullpen.

7:27 PM Dinner is served. Pasta pomadoro. Back in a few.

7:45 PM I’m back. Giants up, 4-3, going to the bottom of the seventh. Rodriguez starting his second inning of work for San Francisco.

7:49 PM Don’t forget to watch "Girls Club" on Monday. I know I won’t miss it.

7:50 PM Salmon hits one on the screws to right but Sanders comes in to make a nice play. Salmon had a good pass on that one.

7:53 PM Anderson is having trouble with Rodriguez’ fastball. Not surprising; 98 MPH with movement. Yikes.

7:55 PM Anderson hits a sharp grounder to Kent to close out the seventh. Angels are running out of outs.

7:59 PM Scott Schoeneweis and Ben Weber up in the Anaheim bullpen. Gotta believe Schoeneweis is coming in to face Kent. Meanwhile, Tim Worrell is warming up for the Giants and Donnelly has fallen behind Kent, 3-0. Not good.

8:00 PM Kent lines to Eckstein, who drops the ball, picks it up, and throws him out. Enter Schoeneweis.

8:04 PM Schoeneweis has worked four games this postseason, for a total of one inning. He’s only 28 years old and he actually was a pretty decent starting pitcher before switching to relief. Bonds walks on four pitches. Enter Weber. That’s got to be a gratifying day’s work for Schoeneweis.

8:07 PM Fox is showing highlights of Santiago as a Padre. That seems like a lifetime ago.

8:09 PM Morgan keeps talking about Bonds possibly stealing a base here. I don’t see it. The Angels seem to agree with Morgan, as Weber keeps throwing over to first. Morgan mentions that Weber sets up differently when he throws to first. I guess if it’s that obvious, then maybe Morgan is right and Bonds should run.

8:11 PM Bonds goes, Santiago grounds to short. Eckstein makes a nice diving stop and throws out Santiago by plenty.

8:13 PM Weber’s pitches move a lot.

8:15 PM Sanders strikes out on another wicked sinker. The more I see of Weber, the more I don’t have a problem with Scioscia bringing him into a close game late instead of Percival. His stuff is nasty.

8:18 PM Enter Worrell. Angels have six outs left.

8:21 PM Worrell freezes Glaus for strike three. The pitch appeared to be pretty hittable, but Glaus was looking for something else.

8:23 PM Fullmer grounds to Kent. If Worrell retires Spiezio, it’s Robb Nen in the ninth. Now would be a good time to start hitting.

8:25 PM What is Spiezio waiting for? Whatever it is, I don’t think he’s going to get it.

8:26 PM Spiezio coaxes a walk. Nice at-bat. Chone Figgins runs for Spiezio. Orlando Palmeiro bats for Molina.

8:31 PM Palmeiro is battling. I love his approach at the plate. He’s got that Dave Magadan thing going.

8:32 PM Palmeiro pops to Bell just off the Angels’ dugout. Ninth inning. Uh-oh.

8:35 PM Jose Molina behind the plate, Shawn Wooten at first base. Weber is dealing; he looks to me like a guy who could close.

8:40 PM Battery died on the laptop. I’m back. Weber cruised through the top of the ninth. Kennedy, Eckstein, and Erstad due up against Nen.

8:44 PM Kennedy looks like he’s trying to tie the game. Hits one to the warning track in right. Two outs to go.

8:45 PM Nen looks a bit rusty. His velocity and command aren’t as good as usual.

8:47 PM Eckstein strikes out on a nasty slider down and away. So much for rust. It comes down to Erstad.

8:50 PM Erstad pops up an 0-2 pitch to right-center. Lofton puts it away to end Game 1. Bonds and the Giants get a World Series win under their belts. If this game was any indication, it’s going to be one heckuva series. Later…

Looking Back at Preseason Projections

by Geoff Young on Oct 19, 2002 (0) Comments

Okay, ducksnorts.com is back in effect, so you can forget about all those other nasty URLs I gave you. Once again, your patience is appreciated.

Game 1 of the World Series tonight. Woo-hoo! And I’ll be at band practice, trying to figure out how to play Rick James’ “Superfreak” without keyboards. Sigh.

But I’ll tape the game; only bad thing about that is I can’t listen to ESPN radio while watching the game. You know I’m not going to listen to the Fox announcers.

While we’re waiting, I thought I’d take a look back at some preseason projections for Padre players (alliteration not intended). Hey, Dennis Tankersley hit .308/.308/.615 in 13 at-bats. Who knew?

Long story somewhat shorter, I did the best on three of the projections, Shandler took two, STATS and Prospectus got one apiece, and we all stunk on the other six. Everyone overshot big time on Sean Burroughs (rookie struggles), Wiki Gonzalez (injuries), D’Angelo Jimenez (?), Ray Lankford (injuries, age), Phil Nevin (injuries), and Bubba Trammell (?).

Bottom line is, predicting the future is a fascinating yet ultimately fruitless concept. As Gary Huckabay at Baseball Prospectus points out, all we can do is take educated guesses and then hope for the best.

Speaking of Prospectus, Jonah Keri has a terrific interview with Dr. Mike Marshall over there. I recommend it.

Well, I’m about to walk over to Convoy for some Vietnamese food. I’ll be back tomorrow with thoughts on Game 1. Enjoy…

Changing Hosts

by Geoff Young on Oct 18, 2002 (0) Comments

Holy smokes, I had no idea there were so many of you out there! One of the things I can do with my new hosting company is look at server logs. Now that I’ve done that, well, I feel a bit like Wile E. Coyote running off the edge of a cliff and looking down. Awareness. What a trip.

Anyway, thanks for coming by and hanging out at my place. At the moment there isn’t much baseball talk happening here because of technical issues, but that will change soon. I’ll be popping in regularly with my thoughts on the World Series once that gets underway. Lucky you.

Meantime, regarding the technical issues, here’s the deal. Ducksnorts.com still isn’t functioning (I’m pinging it obsessively, 5-10 times an hour; funny how that doesn’t make the DNS change go any faster). But you can reach the site at the URL listed in yesterday’s entry. You can also reach it at ducksnorts.geoffreynyoung.com or geoffreynyoung.com/ducksnorts. If you choose the latter, the formatting will be all screwy, but what the heck, it’s better than nothing (or not, depending on whom you ask).

And if you’re wondering why we’re making all these changes, it boils down to the following:

  • My ISP, formerly a local company which I’d been with for several years, was bought out last year and no longer works with non-businesses (other than existing customers, such as myself, who were grandfathered in). The service isn’t what it once was, and the price is too high for what it is (yes, I’m still on dial-up).
  • In going to a professional hosting company (as opposed to using free space provided by my ISP), there are many more options in terms of presentation, functionality, etc. I can do CGI, PHP, and a bunch of other acronyms. What this means, theoretically, is more interactivity. When that will happen and in what form, I do not know, but at least now the potential is there. This is something I’ll be thinking about a great deal in the coming months; if you have any ideas, please let me know. I’m always trying to find ways to make Ducksnorts better.

So, apologies for the technical difficulties and for bogging down my blog with a bunch of technobabble. But as someone who deals with the Internet every day on many different levels, I thought you should know what’s happening here and that everything will be back to normal before too long.

Server Move Has Begun

by Geoff Young on Oct 17, 2002 (0) Comments

Just a quick administrative update. The server move has begun. I hope to have everything completed by the end of the weekend. Once again, I don’t expect the site to experience significant downtime. But if for whatever reason you can’t find us, I’ve mirrored this blog at http://members.cts.com/king/g/gyoung/ducksnorts/weblog/; that URL will be good through the end of this month, by which time everything should be back to normal.

As always, thanks for your support and patience. See ya on the flip side…

Fried Twinkies, Arizona Fall League, and Servers

by Geoff Young on Oct 16, 2002 (0) Comments

In the “Disgusting-But-I-Just-Might-Have-To-Try-It” department, we have fried Twinkies. Yikes…

Blogging is kind of like a virus that just keeps on spreading. I ran a Google search on Ducksnorts, and here are some sites that link to me:

Thanks, folks, for spreading the word.

Padres in the AFL

            AB  BA OBP SLG BB SO
Bozied,Ta   47 234 280 447  3 11
Faison,Vi   18 389 429 389  2  2
Gautreau,Ja 20 350 417 400  3  3
Nady,Xa     26 385 407 615  1  4
Risinger,Be  8 250 250 250  0  2

          IP H BB SO  ERA
Baker,Br 6.0 7  1 12 4.50
Bynum,Mi 8.0 5  5  9 4.50

Administrivia

I mentioned a while back that I’d been looking for a new server for Ducksnorts. Well, I’ve found one. I’ll be switching things over within the next two weeks or so. I expect the transition to be seamless, but on the off chance that service is disrupted for a short time, that’s why. Anyway, just thought you should know…

Operating System Nightmares and the 2002 World Series

by Geoff Young on Oct 15, 2002 (0) Comments

Apologies for the lack of updates of late. I spent most of the weekend working on my computers, not with them. Memory upgrades, hardware installs, OS installs. Big fun.

The geek in me hates to admit this, but I’ve rejoined the evil empire. Yep, I went out and bought Windows XP. On sale, the upgrade (thank goodness for that old Windows 95 CD that’s been collecting dust on my shelf all these years) wasn’t much more than most Linux distros you see in stores nowadays.

I like Linux and still intend to use it (assuming I can get that second hard drive up and running), but at this stage, the concept is more appealing than the reality. I don’t like Microsoft’s business practices and I don’t like the way they attempt to strong-arm their customers (ever read the license agreement for XP?), but like it or not, we live in a Windows world. I’m not giving up on Linux by a long-shot. But right now it’s Sean Burroughs, and I need Ryan Klesko.

Okay, enough of that. How about some baseball? An all-California series. Pretty cool, huh? And yet, you know the start times will be screwed up to accommodate folks back east who may or may not care about the games. Ah, well.

Meantime, we’ve got a pretty good matchup on our hands. Personally, as much as I’d like to see Barry Bonds get a ring (but even if he doesn’t, can we all agree that he’s done more than enough this October to remove the proverbial monkey from his back?), I don’t think the Giants’ pitching can stop the Angels’ bats. Anaheim in six.

And in the interest of remaining as noncommital as possible, once again I’ll be happy regardless of who wins. I’d like to see Bonds get a ring. But when I was a kid, Mike Scioscia was my favorite player, so that’d be cool, too. Should be a fun series.

In Padre news, it looks like Davey Lopes is returning. Other coaching moves in the works as well.

Oh, and remember the battle between Kevin Towers and Oliver Perez over whether the latter would pitch this winter? Well, Perez worked seven innings on Friday. Faced 27 batters. Somehow I don’t think this is what Towers had in mind.

That’s all for now…

Searching for Ambiorix

by Geoff Young on Oct 10, 2002 (0) Comments

No baseball coverage today. You know what’s going on in the playoffs. You know that there’s been a shakeup in the Padres’ coaching staff (congrats to Alan Trammell, BTW, on being named manager of the Tigers). So we won’t be talking about any of that today. Instead we’re going to embark upon something I like to call…

Frivolous Friday

Periodically I receive logs of search requests made at Ducksnorts. Yep, every time you run a search in that little box over there, a record is made. Don’t worry, it doesn’t contain any personal info. It just tells me the term searched for, along with the date and time at which the search request was made. Most of the stuff that shows up is pretty self-explanatory and makes sense. Stuff like “Burroughs” or “Germano” and the like. But every now and then I get something kinda odd. Here’s one that recently came through: “Ambiorix.”

So in the interest of helping the person who entered that search request, and because I need to fill my head with yet another piece of trivia, I ran a search of my own and found, among other things, that Ambiorix is not the latest Dominican shortstop prospect but was, in fact, the leader of the Eburones. Ambiorix’ claim to fame, if you want to call it that, is that he led an attack against Julius Caesar, ulitmately resulting in the annihilation of his own people.

There you have it. Something to ponder over the weekend between games…

2002 Playoffs: Twins vs A’s

by Geoff Young on Oct 07, 2002 (0) Comments

Wow. That Twins-A’s game yesterday was about as good as it gets. I actually managed to watch the entire game virtually uninterrupted (except for a brief spot in the top of the fourth when Fox Family Channel disappeared for about two minutes). I’ll make a few quick observations, as someone who doesn’t follow either team (i.e., take them with the appropriate mountains of salt).

  • Cristian Guzman, Torii Hunter, and Doug Mientkiewicz all have reputations as stellar defenders, and from what I can tell, they’re all well deserved. That play Guzman made on the ball hit by Randy Velarde was spectacular. Hunter made a nice diving play earlier in the game. And I haven’t seen a right-handed thrower look as good at first base as Mientkiewicz since probably Andres Galarraga in his prime.
  • How come Guzman’s platoon splits aren’t greater than they actually are? The guy looks like Omar Moreno when he comes to the plate left-handed, but he appears to have a pretty good clue from the right side. He must beat out a lot of grounders to short.
  • Two defining at-bats: Bottom of the eighth, LaTroy Hawkins throws eight straight fastballs in the 96-98 MPH range to Miguel Tejada. Strikes him out to end the inning and preserve the Twins’ 2-1 lead. Top of the ninth. Flamethrower Billy Koch comes in to face rookie Dustan Mohr, brought in for defensive purposes the previous inning. Koch gets ahead in the count 0-2 but doesn’t put him away. Mohr draws a walk and promptly scores on A.J. Pierzynski’s homer to right.
  • Both teams battled like nobody’s business. After Pierzynski’s bomb, the cameras showed streams of people (can’t really call them fans) exiting the stadium. They then cut to the Twins locker room and showed the attendants preparing for the postgame celebration. All the while I’m thinking, this is the A’s. They’re a damn good team, and it’s way too early to count them out. Sure enough they almost came back and won it. But not this time. The Twins, I tell you, are a team of destiny.

I could go on, no doubt at great length, but at this point I’d rather turn things over to the Twins fans. Go check out Aaron’s Baseball Blog and Twins Geek. This is their day. Go read what they have to say about it all.

Brenly, Jeter, and Me

by Geoff Young on Oct 06, 2002 (0) Comments

Bob Brenly… Derek Jeter… Me.

Three guys who will be watching the rest of the playoffs on television. How sweet is that? I’m pulling for Minnesota, just so we can all send Bud a “contract this” letter, but really I’ll be happy whoever wins now.

Speaking of the Twins, how about that fourth inning yesterday? I know Tim Hudson’s defense collapsed, but does anyone think that might have been due in part to Minnesota’s approach at the plate? With Hudson having to throw so many pitches to each batter, the defense might’ve been back on their heels a bit.

Not trying to excuse, just wanting to figure out what the heck happened. Those throws by Miguel Tejada and Scott Hatteberg were plain brutal. Did Hatteberg never have a good grip on the ball, or did he double-clutch to avoid Hudson? Bizarre.

Speaking of bizarre, how about those Angels. The Yankees, having made the World Series in each of the past four seasons, having secured the best record in the bigs this season, got steamrolled by an offensive dynamo. Maybe Joe Torre is right, and the better team didn’t win. Such is the nature of the playoffs. The Yankees and their mystique ran into an underrated, overachieving team at exactly the wrong time. And now they go home for the winter.

Also calling it a season are the Diamondbacks. Swept by the Cardinals. Are you kidding me? Anyone who tells you they called this one is lying.

I guess if I had to choose a team to pull for in the NL it would be the Cards because of all the loss they’ve incurred this year. But honestly, at this point, I’m okay with just about any World Series configuration. I’ll be happy for whichever team wins it. For a change.

Short Takes

Not to kill anyone’s buzz, but I’m doing some research and came across these two lines, both of highly regarded shortstops with questionable defensive reputations playing in the California League:

Year AB H 2B 3B HR BB SO BA OBP SLG
1995 212 73 17 2 6 29 30 .344 .431 .528
2002 183 58 9 1 9 12 33 .317 .368 .525

Top is Gabe Alvarez, bottom Khalil Greene. Two entirely different players, I know, but something worth noting.

Go Chargers…