If I think back hard enough, I can still feel the stinging in my hands, hear the ringing in my ears.
Growing up in northwestern Pennsylvania, those attacks on your senses were something you became accustomed to if you played baseball at a competitive level. I graduated high school in 1997, on the very fringe of the movement to turn youth sports into a year-round, practice-til-you-drop affair. Continue reading
What’s not to love about an athlete’s body? It’s the tool he needs to do his job so he takes great care of his tool. Yes, I said it. At the very least, we can admire and appreciate athletes’ bodies for the living machines they are. Let’s get real though: we’re not just appreciating the functionality of a well toned physique; we’re lusting after hot pieces of man meat. Soccer may have some great legs; swimming may have some amazing torsos; football may… well let’s face it, they wear so much padding you can’t see their bodies anyway (ditto for hockey). If you want to see some great asses though, you’re going to have to turn on baseball. Continue reading
Whether you’re a fan of sports or not, you’ve probably heard of Jackie Robinson. The first African-American to ever play in the MLB, he broke barriers and paved the way for thousands of black athletes, doing it all under the shadow of vile racism and awful treatment from opposing players. Maybe you’ve heard of Roberto Clemente, the first Latin American ballplayer to ever get elected to the Hall of Fame, widely recognized for his humanitarian efforts. Well it’s time you learned about Saturnino Orestes Armas Miñoso Arrieta, also known as Minnie Miñoso. Continue reading
In baseball, there are the teams that can afford to pay any price for talent and then there are the teams not called “Yankees.” Michael Lewis spent part of the 2002 MLB season with the Oakland Athletics to see this practice in action. Lewis used the material from the time he spent with the team to write Moneyball. In 2011, a film based on the book was released.
Instead of looking for one player with a dream stat lines, Oakland Athletics General Manager Billy Beane looks for players that in the aggregate would have the same stat line as a team that a superior team would. It’s a great way to save money, or just stay within budget. Despite having a payroll of $41 million, which was about one-third of the Yankees payroll, the A’s were playoff contenders Continue reading
Ok, folks, this is it. World Series Game 7. Win or go home. This one is for all the enchiladas (or however that saying goes). Let’s do this!
Following baseball away from New York City is usually an exercise in irrational hatred. The Yankees are aggressively good. Year after year, those assholes swoop in and pick up the most talented free agents on the market, gratuitously overpaying because they’re the Yankees and it doesn’t matter if you pay Alex Rodriguez $30 million a year even if he can barely play 120 games a year. Continue reading
As the 2011 regular season draws to a close, the annual debate over regular season awards has begun to heat up. Everyone gets into it, from the average fan to old sportswriters to sanctimonious bloggers. Let’s get into the fun with our very own ballot. Pick a winner for each category, or feel free to write in a candidate. Ignorant debates that end with “COUNT THE RINGZ BRO” are highly recommended. For info on Wins Above Replacement (WAR) check out these links. We’ll start with the American League and come back with the Senior Circuit in a few days. Continue reading
The big news today is Rod Blagojevich got his ass handed to him in court yesterday. A jury found him guilty of 17 corruption charges. “I, frankly, am stunned,” said Blagojevich as he left the court house. There is a number of other things happening also including plenty of war crimes.
Three days after his epic DUI arrest, hard-drinking slugger Miguel Cabrera was a no-show as the Detroit Tigers opened spring training workouts for the entire club today. It’s unclear when, or even if, Cabrera will join his teammates this spring in Lakeland, FL, according to The Detroit Free Press and a number of other sources. Cabrera is expected to enter an alcohol rehabilitation center within the next several days, which could keep him away from baseball until just before the start of the regular season in early April. But Tigers management and Cabrera’s teammates were more concerned about Cabrera the person than Cabrera the ballplayer and today and universally voiced support and concern for their missing teammate.
“He’s going to be welcomed here with open arms by his teammates,” Tigers skipper Jim Leyland said to reporters. “And they’re going to want to see him hit that ball over the right-centerfield fence with two men on, and he’s going to do that.”
Cabrera, a native of Venezeula, was arrested on suspicion of DUI in Fort Pierce, FL late Wednesday night as he was making his way to spring training from his winter home in Boca Raton. Cabrera, driving a black 2005 Range Rover–a definite undercar for a guy who signed a $153 million contract in 2008–was pulled over by a St Lucie County deputy who saw the SUV swerving through traffic. Arresting officer Deputy Peter Lamborghini–yes, that’s his name– wrote in his arrest report that Cabrera not only declined a breathalyzer test, wandered frequently onto the road and refused several requests to get in the back seat of the officer’s car, but at one point Cabrera also reached into his own car and “picked up a bottle of James Buchanan’s scotch whiskey and started drinking it.” Well, why not? It’s not like he was going to be driving anymore that night.
Cabrera, notes the police report, also pulled the Fame Card and and at one point said to Deputy Lamborghini, “Fuck you…do you know who I am.” While no audio has yet been released of the arrest, almost certainly the exchange sounded more like “Faaaaa uuuuu, nooooo who ayemm?” Excellent work by the deputy translating Drunk English into Standard English so quickly.
In October 2009, Cabrera was arrested, but never charged, on a domestic disturbance report at his home in suburban Detroit. His blood alcohol content was .26 when measured by police after being taken into custody. Cabrera reportedly went through an alcohol counseling outpatient program following the 2009 season. No off-the-field incidents involving Cabrera occured in 2010, a season in which he hit .328 with 38 home runs. The Tigers still owe Cabrera over $100 million.