Hump Day Reading: Pot-smoking mystery pitcher edition
Joe Sheehan at Baseball Prospectus Unfiltered thinks people (or at least, Peter Schmuck) aren’t publishing The Truth about Barry Bonds. Some of his points are duly noted—Bonds is not the slow, broken player Schmuck casts him as. But with other points, you get the feeling that Schmuck just got deeply under Sheehan’s skin and then couldn’t get out again—such as when Schmuck claims that Bonds would create “a chronic public relations problem” and Sheehan responds, “Barry Bonds doesn’t create a public relations problem…Barry Bonds has a media relations problem.” That’s pretty weak hair-splitting. And Sheehan’s dismissal of Barry Bonds legal problems looks a bit different now that the indictment as been refiled. Nonetheless, if you’re looking for a spirited defense of Barry Bonds (hard to come by these days), it’s worth a read.
Respect Jeter’s Gangster weighs in on the Jobagate fist-pump controversy with some situations in which it may or may not be appropriate for you to pump your fist.
The Padres’ struggles have inspired a debate over at Gaslamp Ball about whether professional ballplayers even need coaches. I say they do. What do you say?
Ever wondered what happened to the old Tiger Stadium? Joe Lapointe has an article in The New York Times and Fabrizio Constantini an eye-opening slide show. (Did you know that they auctioned off one of the dugout urinals last year? I somehow missed that story. And somehow, my life was complete without that particular piece of information.) It’s weird to think that the Tigers have been in Comerica for almost ten years, and that Tiger Stadium has been mouldering scarcely a mile away the entire time. My one beef with the slide show—I like artsy detail shots as much as any amateur shutterbug, but I would have liked a picture of the entire field included, to serve as an establishing shot. And some “before” shots would have been nice to go along with the “afters.”
Bleeding Blue and Teal weighs in on Griffey-to-Seattle trade talk and how such a move might actually make sense.
As draft day approaches, Minor League Ball looks at some high school hitters of interest. If you root for a craptastic team with a high pick, you can start drooling over them now. If you root for a great team with a lot of money, you can start hoping they develop “signability issues.”
Yanksfan Soxfan brings us a blind item from the NY Daily News about a “formerly awesome” pitcher whose shoulder woes are actually due to “years of smoking pot” and “one drug-addled incident in which he had to carry a passed-out date up three flights of stairs.” Guesses in the comments range from the preposterous (Schilling, Pedro) to the “hmmmm…maybe” (Gagne, Zito, Pavano). Got a better guess? Let ‘em know!
If you’ve got cabin fever because it’s a gorgeous May Day and you came into work today like a good doobie instead of calling in sick and going hiking like you really, really wanted to, maybe you should take a look at Slate’s series on baseball in the Dominican Republic (with, of course, an accompanying slide show).
Dan Graziano of the Star Ledger prints some email correspondence with Carlos Delgado’s agent. Neither man comes off looking very good (hint: someone calls someone a retard). Yes, these men are professionals! Do not try this at home!
Razzball takes a look back at Pete Rose’s 1983 season, a year “Pete evaded success like it was the taxman.”
Joe Posnanski brings you Brian Bannister’s crazy day-night splits.
And I said Over The Monster’s picture of Mike Lowell (above) looked like “George Clooney-meets-Humphrey Bogart-meets-UFH.” Paul countered, “He just looks like he’s giving Tek the ol’ stink eye.” What do you think, UmpBumpers?
What else should I be reading? Help me procrastinate better!
May 14th, 2008 at 11:12 am
Can we please all make an effort to not use the term Jobagate?
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May 14th, 2008 at 11:16 am
What would you prefer, Danny O? Pumpgate? It’s de rigeur to add a “-gate” suffix nowadays, so I’m afraid that’s nonnegotiable.
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May 14th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
Goose Gossage is an idiot… people get emotional on the field, it’s not like he is trying to show anyone up. I pump my fist after getting a guy to fly out with two down amd the bases loaded in my slow pitch softball game.
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May 14th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
I don’t think anyone would care if Joba were a closer or a starter, which are actually the two roles he would be best in. It is a bit odd seeing a middle-innings guy, even a set-up man, give such a display of emotion, but that’s just because of custom, not because there’s anything inherently wrong with it.
And of course, if Joba were on a different team this wouldn’t be such a big deal, which Gossage pointed to in his comments. Joba’s behavior just isn’t “the Yankee way.” I think it’s because the Yankees are *supposed* to be the best, the cool kids, the winnahs. They’re *supposed* to be so superior that notching key strikeouts is simply no big deal to them. Joba’s behavior perhaps flies in the face of how the organization sees itself. I do wonder what Joe Torre would be doing in this situation.
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May 14th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
I’m going to go with Barry Zito…with “drunk date” Alyssa Milano…up 3 flights of stairs. he seems like a pothead. Pavano’s the easy answer, but he likes speed and coke and car accidents, and I see him leaving his date at the bottom of the stairs.
what do I win!??
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May 14th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
of course, carrying a passed-out “date’ woman up to his room is the only way I see Gagne scoring with opposite sex at all so…damn this is harder than I thought. is this going to be on the LSATs?
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May 14th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
Zito would be my guess.
Some more ridiculous guesses…
1) Mike Mussina
2) Jamie Moyer
3) Roy Oswalt
4) Tim Wakefield
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May 15th, 2008 at 12:39 am
Gossage is oddly taking a lot of heat for his comments, but I actually side with the Goose on this one. Fine, pump your fist if you just got out of a crucial 9th inning situation or a bases loaded jam or something, but don’t just randomly pump your fist if you randomly strike out a guy in the middle of a random inning, and definitely don’t pump your fist if that guy hit a big homer off you a few days prior.
Even more than “showing up” the opposition, it just makes you look dumb and petty and not cooly in control of your emotions, and shows you aren’t able to let go something that happened a few games ago.
It definitely reflects poorly on yourself as a player and on your team as a whole.
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May 15th, 2008 at 1:27 am
Unless you trip over your dog, how do you manage to get an injured shoulder from pot smoking? That seems like more of a mystery than the identity of the player.
I tend to agree with Nick’s thoughts on the fist pumping but Gossage seems a bit hypocritical here. Wasn’t he teammates with Reggie Jackson? I have never heard him calling out Reggie for showing up the opposition constantly in an era when most players didn’t behave that way. Unfortunately now players have to celebrate over every minor accomplishment, it’s rather annoying. Already this season I’ve seen numerous teams celebrating at home plate when they score the winning run in the bottom of the 9th or in an extra inning game. You would think they had just won game 7 of the World Series. It’s one stinking game in April or May stop jumping up and down like 9 year old girls at a Jonas Brothers Concert.
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May 15th, 2008 at 1:37 am
Actually, you know what I saw the other day that really annoyed me? And I unfortunately have blocked out just who it was who did this…maybe a Twin or an Oriole, since it was no doubt when I was half-watching the Red Sox game (I was also half-watching the Celtics, more out of a sense of obligation to my region than anything else, which is why I can’t remember which player or team it was…but anyway). This dude got a single. Just a regular old single. And he got to first base, and he stood there on the bag, and he pointed up at the sky. Now, I am okay with pitchers saying a quick prayer before they take the hill, or a hitter pointing up at the heavens when they’ve just knocked home a dinger. People pray for stupider reasons, and prayer is a very personal thing. BUT I REALLY DON’T THINK GOD CARES ABOUT SINGLES. I have no doubt that God is a baseball fan, but I am pretty sure He (or She, or It) is too busy to get involved for anything less than extra bases.
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