I can't believe Texas fired Showalter. Its not his fault that they don't have any pitching. I hope ESPN hires him back for BBTN.

http://tinyurl.com/nq2wc

I'm the Babe today. :-)

Guess Verducch was too busy pondering cherry blossom analogies to catch Sheff's solid work at the bag last night, complete with back-handed scoops, and Cirque du Soleil stretches.

Heck - I'd split in two myself if I tried that. These guys are amazing.

Sheff's fine. Is he Donny Baseball at 1st? No way. But he'll be fine (knock on wood).

Oh yeah, I remember Esteban Loaiza now.

"If a dozen streaking midgets ran through the [Yankees'] clubhouse followed by Ted Williams's frozen head riding a fire-breathing unicorn, the captain would simply blink and then politely say that it's all about winning, and he's just focused on helping this team get another championship."

So funny, and yet so true.

Terrific matchup between two outstanding franchises.

It's a little sad that they play in such hideous ballparks.

As bad as the dome is, the A's might have it worse having to look across the bay at the beautiful San Fran park.

Yanks-Tiggers is a much more telegenic series, no?

Lord, I really hope the New Stadium does not end up looking like another HOK cookie cutter retro mallpark. That will make me cry.

As for the Yanks, I'm not overly sentimental about the current Stadium, but it works for me, and I just don't think they need a new one, let alone one that seats fewer people.

During the 1999 World Series, I was on my way home from late classes and club meetings, chillin' on the 6 platform when this guy, dressed in worn and dirty clothes and with a likeness that recalled Rev. Jim from Taxi, lurched towards me.

I glanced around; we were the only people on the platform, or even in the whole station...

He stared at me and hopped/shuffled in my direction. A slight shiver went through me looking for a way out, but I bit my toungue and waited.

"Hey buddy," he rasped, "'ya got the time?"

I looked at my watch. "It's 2:30," I replied warily.

The guy's face goes blank. He leans leans forward and his eyes roll halfway upward, so the whites show underneath the cold, staring grays.

"...tha YANK-eesh!" he breathes in wide-eyed amazement. "GO, YANKEES! GO, GO GO!!! YANK-EEEEES!!!!!"

He stomps off, triumphantly screaming to the top of his lungs, leaving me looking around for Alan Funt and the hidden camera that has got to be somewhere nearby.

You can't make this stuff up in New York. If you do, it'll likely happen next week.

1) Leg room, leg room, leg room. Those of us that are over 5'3 really appreciate that extra space.

2) No poles (in which they put a seat right behind it LOL) block your view.

Also like that fact that Comerica Park is more open and spacious all around and doesn't feel closed in like Tiger Stadium did.

JMO

Hunter's bummin.

But since I just watch the Tigers on TV when they play the Yanks, I miss seeing Tiger Stadiums' upper deck and all those poles. Childhood sentimentality I guess.

It's too easy to 2nd guess after the fact.
Knowing this (3 for 8), would YOU have left Wang in, in the 7th?
Hmmmmmmmmmmmm....

Kotsay jogged out of the box and then started chugging. He was gasping in the dugout afterward.

Hunter might have had it before he lost a step, but it was not a safe play.

not a smile to be seen in the Twinks dugout, 2 outs, none on in the 8th.

Hunter's up now.

Think the Sheff-Giambi-A-Rod trio will ever be set down in 7 pitches this postseason? Me neither.

:-P

Many being Manny is becoming contageous. It's time for managers to fine players for this. Over the year, how many singles would have been doubles? How many doubles could have been triples? Are there games that are lost on this one issue alone?

Manny gets paid about $35,000 per PA. Think about that. The average player make $4,000 per PA. Is it really that much to ask that they run hard? At least IN THE FREAKIN' POST SEASON?

/rant

And its true - Wright has given up 3 measley HRs to RH batters all season (in 77.2 IP). Wow.

Wright does seem to give up a lot of line drives though.

41 Then there's "Lil'" Nicky Punto, who hustles so much out of the box that he slides into first instead of, you know, running it out and being safe.

For some guys, lack of hustle out of the box doesn't bother me. Manny, for instance. Dude can hit like nobody's business, I don't really care if he hustles. Kotsay, with his bad back on that turf in Minn., I don't care that he didn't hustle. Better no hustle than needless injury.

But when a young, quick guy playing on grass doesn't hustle - Cano last year, Soriano in the past - that irks me big-time. No good reason to not hustle in that case.

But you're right about Wright - his line drive percentage is 23.8, second in the AL behind Paul Byrd among starters.

The lowest line drive percentage in the AL? Why Randy Johnson, amazingly enough.

Let's Go Yan-Kees!

And nice end there in 70, MFD!

I popped over to Dodger Thoughts to see their reaction, and found this, courtesy of Bob Timmerman of the Griddle:

"8/2/1985 White Sox at Yankees

YANKEES 7TH: NICHOLS STAYED IN GAME (PLAYING LF); Robertson singled; MEACHAM RAN FOR ROBERTSON; Berra reached on an error by
Hulett [Meacham to second, Berra to first]; Henderson singled [Meacham out at home (center to shortstop to catcher), Berra out
at home (catcher)]; Fisk tagged both runners out at the plate; Mattingly made an out to center; 0 R, 2 H, 1 E, 1 LOB. White Sox 3, Yankees 3."

How it it possible for a guy running towards third, wondering if he can score, to NOT be paying attention? I mean, guys have lapses... but in that situation?

No one on ESPN has ever seen a play like that. When I first say it, I thought there was a 'blip' in the broadcast, and that I was seeing the same thing twice.

Yow!
Ain't baseball a great game!

Baseball is THE BEST GAME.

77 MFD, Willie ought to remember that one, as he was the last out the inning before that one. But all credit to Bob T., and Darren in 72 who remembered it without any online help!

Now that the Mets have taken the lead, that play might come back to haunt the Dodgers.

Damn, looks like they considered the problem of the Mets' game going 25 innings and Morgan missing the Yankees' game. He's leaving now. I guess if the alternative was Steve Phillips, I don't really mind.

Berman, Morgan, Phillips, Miller... is there no one graduating from Conneticut School of Broadcasting lately? Is there no one to save us from this tyrrany of awful?

Nooooooo....

http://tinyurl.com/ozfqc

Hey, the "best shortstop in NY" just struck out with a pretty terrible swing!

Add retrosheet and baseball-reference.com to that list. And the Banter! =)

Speaking of Lost - anyone else with a TiVo/DVR conflicted on whether to which to watch live and which to watch later? Sigh.

So, Bama, looks like our teams go head to head on Saturday. Bama gets a visit from the mighty Blue Devils. Should be a good game.

(resists incapacitating amount of laughter)

As for Saturday, we'll take it easy on you guys on the gridiron if Coach K and Company will go easy on us when/if we meet on the hardcourt (hopefully sometime near the end of next March).

Speaking of baseball-reference, 2006 stats have just been added to the site. A few interesting things, after a few minutes of browsing:

- Robinson Cano's most similar list through age 23 includes 3 HOFers.

- The most similar player to Alex Rodriguez, career-wise, ... is Mike Piazza?

- Most of the pitchers on Chien-Ming Wang's most similar through age 26 are obscurities.

- The most similar player to Bernie Williams? Appropriately, a long-time teammate.

Check out Miguel Cabrera's... he's had the same player as the most similar all three years...

http://tinyurl.com/rw6m8

That's by no means the lowest most-similar score. Barry Bonds's best match is Willie Mays, 786. The lowest that I've found so far are for Rickey Henderson (686) and Pete Rose (674). Seems right; nobody really had a set of stats very much like either of those two. Oddly enough, in both cases the most similar player is Paul Molitor.

"Perhaps more importantly, though, was a lesson learned in the importance of manufacturing playoff runs. Detroit ended a potential rally in the second when Ivan Rodriguez failed to make contact on a hit-and-run, resulting in Magglio Ordonez being thrown out trying to steal third for the first out of the inning.

''The big thing is, you learn right away, you've got to manufacture as much as you can and get those runs across,'' Tigers center fielder Curtis Granderson said. ''If we go ahead and get a couple of runs across in the first, second and third innings, it's a different story.''"

The word "manufacture" to me always means bunt, scrap, hit and run, etc....maybe they meant something different by the comment. The reason they didn't score is because the tried to do TOO much when all they needed was I-Rod to get a single. Instead they tried a double steal, got the man thrown out at third with less than 2 outs, and probably fouled up Rodriguez' at bat by making him swing to protect the runners.

The lesson they should have learned is, let your players do their thing. I-Rod singles there and the Tigers draw first blood.

The Dodgers are apparently employing the same shift for Carlos Delgado that the Yanks use for David Ortiz - you know, the one that never works? 2 singles where the SS should be, and another up the middle.

And Tony LaRussa has Eckstein bunt?????????

I know he's a genius and all. But that's just terrible baseball.

We won the game, but these stats are disturbing.

And according to Peter Abraham, Shef's wife is going to sing the National Anthem.

I'm giving her a standing o already.

Let's see. About 70k/year for ONE condo on the 88th fl. Any statheads want to guess on how much tax money Trump World Tower generates annually?

They also posted a .368 OBP which was negated in part by Polanco's 2 double play balls. The homers contributed to the big slugging, but they were both solo jobs.

If you had replaced Myers and Proctor's time in the game with a quick out, you'd have one less run, one less home run, and overall 3 less hits. That decision to remove Wang MAY have altered the numbers by a lot. Let's assume an out instead of the adventure the two relievers went on. (It's impossible to know the snowball effect the change in batters for the 8th inning would have and so on, but bear with me.)

The Tigers line could have looked like:

.273/.314/.606

The slugging is still alarming due to all the doubles and Monroe's homer, but the OBP is ugly. It's hard to draw any real conclusions about the ratios from one game, especially as Myers and Proctor's .1 IP throws a monkey wrench into the equation.

Those numbers exist and you can't discount them, but I think the line you see in my new calculations is more representative of this Tigers' ability than the higher numbers that turned out in Game One.

105 Actually Guo was the better one a few years back. He came to MLB at least a year earlier than Wang. Then Guo got some serious injuries which pretty much prevented him from moving forward. However, to the Yankees credits, they helped Wang developed his sinkers. Apparently, both the Yankees and Wang hit the jackpot.