Yesterday afternoon my girlfriend Suz and I went to watch the Mexican National Team play the Colorado Rockies at Hi Corbett Field in Tucson.

Mexico won 2-1. It was the second time in three days that the Rockies squared off against Mexico. Two days earlier the Rockies won 15-2. Fortunately for Mexico, today’s game was a split squad game for Colorado, so the Rox were without loyal Umpbump reader Troy Tulowitzki and a few other key regulars.

Rockies players who did play today included Matt Holliday, Willy Taveras, Brad Hawpe and Todd Helton. Jeff Francis started the game for the Rox. I didn’t recognize any of the Mexican players.

We sat right in the middle of the Mexican fans, behind Mexico’s dugout. I don’t speak Spanish so I missed the meaning behind a ton of heckling. The guys sitting right behind us were drinking Coors Lights and having a blast. Every minute or so a guy in sunglasses and a camouflage hat would shout something and the fans on our side of the stadium would snicker.

At one point, Suz turned to me and said:

“I think I’m losing the hearing in my right ear.”

“What?” I asked.”

“I think I’m losing the hearing in my right ear,” she repeated.

“I can’t hear you,” I said. “The fans behind you are too loud. What did you say?”

“I said I think I’m losing the hearing in my right ear,” she said.

“Oh,” I said. “Yeah.”

As I was leaving the game, the guy in the camouflage hat excitedly high-fived me. I asked him what he had been shouting and he explained to me that he was taunting Mexico’s third base coach, who stands about ten feet to the right of the batters circle, rather than stand in the coach’s box.

“We don’t like him,” he said. “He never stands where he’s supposed to stand. And he blocks our view.”

Other highlights from the game:

• In the fourth inning, the game stopped for a few minutes when strong winds blew dirt from the field into the stands. After the wind died down, everybody in the first ten rows behind home plate stood up and dusted themselves off. Then the game resumed.
• Former Rockies 3B and former Mexican National Team manager Vinny Castilla came out to coach third in the bottom of the ninth inning and got a big standing ovation. I’m pretty sure Vinny could get elected president in Mexico if he were to run.
• A ball hit by one of the Mexico players appeared to clear the left field fence, but was later ruled a ground rule double, much to the dismay of the fans (Note: when Mexico fans disagree with an ump’s call, they whistle. I’d like to see Philly fans give that a try.)
• Throughout the game, kids and adults tossed hats, shirts and balls over the fence to the players in the Mexico dugout. Without fail, the Mexican players signed the items and tossed them back. Very cool.

All in all, it was a great afternoon. And the lesson, as always, is that Mexican fans are the best. Well, except for maybe Japanese fans.

Oh, one last thing…

This season, MLB has decided that first and third base coaches need to wear helmets (much to Larry Bowa’s dismay). But during spring training games, coaches continue to sit in folding chairs set up adjacent to the dugout, with nothing in between them and the hitters. Is it me, or is that a little inconsistent?

UPDATE: For a slideshow of images of one of the Mexico pitchers warming up in the bullpen, click here. For more pics from yesterday’s game, click here.

I live in Tucson. Today and tomorrow in Tucson are “Rodeo days.” All the kids have off from school for the Tucson Rodeo so they can enjoy a long weekend of nonstop riding, roping and wrangling.

Today, there was also a parade. And not just any parade. The Rodeo Parade is the nation’s largest non-motorized parade. And, as luck would have it, the parade starts right in front of the building where I work. So I wasn’t able to get to work until afternoon.

So what did I do this morning, instead of going to work? I went to spring training, of course!

The Colorado Rockies hold spring training at High Corbett Field, which is located inside a public park that also features a gold course and a zoo. I walked down to the facility and watched as the Rockies players took batting and fielding practice. The weather was about 75 degrees and sunny.I talked to Rockies president Keli McGregor, who was quoted this morning in the local paper saying he hoped the Rockies could stay in Tucson, even though the White Sox are angling to skip town.

Here’s what McGregor told the AZ Daily Star:

“Two teams is not ideal,” he said. “I’d like to think we would have three teams with an eventual expansion to four or five.” One possibility is that the Reds could replace the White Sox in Tucson.

McGregor told me it was too early to speculate about the Reds coming to Tucson, but that the city seems eager to find a way to keep spring training here. I thanked him for taking the time and gave him a handful of Umpbump stickers.

That’s right, Umpbump has stickers. We had them printed up over a year ago and haven’t done much with them since (though I did stick them all over the subway stations in Manhattan).

Two more people who got Umpbump stickers were baseball card collectors Larry (who didn’t give me his last name) and Jon Hanford. Larry, who is from Huntsville, Ala., says he got his first baseball card in 1950 — an Elmer Valo. He says he owns over 115,000 signed cards and over 2 million total.

Hanford was at spring training with his dad. He is a high school senior and is hoping to attend Hofstra in the fall. He says he wrote his college admissions essay about card collecting. He says he and his dad got to Phoenix on Tuesday and their trip got off to a good start.

“We were getting the rental car at Hertz and we ran into Juan Rivera,” he said. “I had my cards with me so I got him to sign it. He’s generally pretty tough to get, and the Angels are the least fan friendly team when it comes to getting autographs.”

Hanford says he started collecting baseball cards in 2000 and starting collecting autographs a couple of years later. He says he has about 1,000 autographed cards and over 12,000 total cards. He says he enjoys “the thrill of the chase.” Today he got autographs from Marcus Giles, Garrett Atkins and Brian Fuentes. And he got a free Umpbump sticker.

One of the Rockies players walked away with an Umpbump sticker, too. I noticed Troy Tulowitzki leaning up against an outfield fence, having a conversation with one of the other players (they were talking about a new bat they had tried out in batting practice — a B45). So I went up to say hi. I wasn’t sure if I should address Tulowitzki as “Troy” or “Tulo.” Everybody else was calling him Tulo.

“Troy,” I said. “Can I give you something?”

He stared at me. “Okay,” he said.

“I’m a big fan,” I said. (That’s not 100 percent true, but not a total lie.) “I write for a baseball website called Umpbump.com. This is one of our stickers. Check us out sometime. And good luck this season.”

He stared at me some more. Then he stared at the sticker. I started to walk away.

“Umm…thanks,” he said.

“You’re welcome!” I said.

And he was.

This is one of a series of posts in which we grade each team’s wily hot stove maneuvers and tragic offseason blunders.

There’s a strange difficulty that comes with success. After the 2007 Colorado Rockies finished their improbable run to the World Series, the team brass had a decision to make: should they concentrate on adding talent or would that simply be meddling with something that needed no such help?

For better or worse, the Rockies took the latter road. In an offseason generally devoid of help via the free agent market, GM Dan O’Dowd simply went about his business signing his young stars Matt Holliday and Troy Tulowitzki to contract extensions but not much else of note. They lost Jeremy Affeldt, Kaz Matsui, Josh Fogg, Rodrigo Lopez and LaTroy Hawkins to free agency and “added” Josh Towers, Luis Vizacino and Kip Wells. They also struck a deal in early December to acquire Jose Capellan for Jamey Carroll and Denny Bautista. As you can probably tell, none of these were exactly earth shattering moves. But let’s see if there’s something that Colorado overlooked and failed to address.

One thing I love about baseball is the fact that there’s really no limitation on the size of the playing field. As such, we get interesting parks like Coors Field - a place that has become synonymous with the entire franchise. In its brief history, Coors has made good hitters seem great and demolished the ERAs of many pitchers. Although its reputation nowadays is a bit overstated, it still remains a place that favors hitters quite a bit.

To get a clear sense of what we’re talking about here, the chart to the right (yes, me and my charts. Deal with it.) shows the home-road splits of the 2007 Colorado Rockies. Keep in mind that the Rockies ended up playing 163 games - 82 of them at home - in 2007 because of the one-game tie breaker. Anyhow, as you would expect, the Rockies offense did far better at home than not. A portion of the difference in AVG, OBP and SLG can be attributed to the 35 extra home runs that the Rockies hit at Coors, but that’s only part of the explanation. Colorado hit 51 more singles at home than away as well.

What about the pitchers? Well, see for yourself. Would you believe it if it weren’t true? Colorado pitchers gave up 82 homeruns at Coors in 2007. They also gave up 82 homeruns away from Coors. So figuring that one extra game they had at home, they ended up averaging fewer homeruns in the thin Denver air. Consequently, there was very little difference in the ERA splits. Rockies pitchers were the real deal in 2007.

So now that we have this information, we can pretty much see the team for who they are (i.e. away from the inflated stats of Coors). Their offense had a decent amount of guys who could get on base but ultimately lacked some serious pop, as evidenced by their road slugging percentage. Only the Giants and D-Backs posted worse on the road. Which is kind of odd if you think about it. When we think of the Rockies, we think of guys like Holliday, Tulowitzki, Atkins and Hawpe. As for pitchers… Well… They have Jeff Francis. He’s pretty good. Right? While I expect that their pitching numbers will overall regress a bit in 2008, it’s really the offense that I think they should have been concerned with. Matt Holliday had a career year. After a slow start, Atkins came on very strong during and after June. They learned that they had a shortstop who may already be ready to compete for the crown of the best in the NL. Despite all of this, they still posted lackluster numbers (relatively speaking with Coors in mind) in the power department.

In 2007, the Rockies had Willy Taveras, Kaz Matsui, and Yorvit Torrealba in their every day lineup. All three failed to slug over .400 away from Denver. In fact, so did Tulo (It’s true. Look it up). If you include the pitcher, that’s over half their batting order that didn’t have the muscle to contribute very much in the slugging department. In 2008, all they will have changed is that Matsui will be replaced by some combination of Marcus Giles, Ian Stewart, and rookie Jayson Nix. And signing Scott Podsednik sure isn’t going to help either.

Additions: Marcus Giles, Luiz Vizcaino, Kip Wells, Josh Towers, Jose Capellan

Losses: Kaz Matsui, Jeremy Affeldt, Josh Fogg, Rodrigo Lopez, LaTroy Hawkins, Jamey Carroll, Denny Bautista

Batting Order:

1. Willy Taveras - CF
2. Troy Tulowitzki - SS
3. Matt Holliday - LF
4. Todd Helton - 1B
5. Garrett Atkins - 3B
6. Brad Hawpe - RF
7. Nix/Giles/Stewart - 2B
8. Yorvit Torrealba - C

Rotation:

1. Jeff Francis
2. Aaron Cook
3. Ubaldo Jimenez
4. Franklin Morales
5. Jason Hirsch/Josh Towers

Bullpen:

CL: Manny Corpas
SU: Brian Fuentes

Offseason Grade: C–

I think it’s fair to say that I’m not putting much (and maybe, not enough) stock in what they accomplished in September and October. But what they had accomplished at the end of last season was improbable and you’d be very hard pressed to think that they’d be able to do it again. To me, this looks like a third place team behind Arizona and Los Angeles. I am no fan of Willy Taveras; he had a .370 BABiP last year and when that goes down, so will his OBP and any value his speed brings to the table. I still like Todd Helton, but I completely expect Matt Holliday to regress a bit. Will Tulo grow up fast enough to help fill that gap? Even if so, did their offense improve? I don’t think it did. I understand why the club thought it would be best to stand pat. One thing they are doing is replacing Rodrigo Lopez and Josh Fogg with some younger (and probably more talented) arms, and that’s something that Rockies fans have to look forward to. But I don’t see this team as being able to repeat as NL Champs.

- Hot Offseason Action Index -

San Diego Padres - a left fielder

To say left field was a revolving door for the Friars last season would be generous. It was more like there was no door at all, and anyone could just walk through and play. After trying all manner of flotsam there last year, including castoffs like Jose Cruz, Jr., Paul McAnulty, Russ Branyan, Terrmel Sledge, Rob Mackowiak, the Padres have still not found a solution.

Although Scott Hairston did hit like a man on fire after coming over from the D-Backs in a late season trade (.981 OPS in 87 AB), and is the putative starter if the season were to start today, before coming to the Pads he had an awful .659 OPS in 176 at-bats with the Snakes, so it’s hard to have any confidence in him.

Another reason it would be useful for the Padres to add at least one more capable player to their outfield mix is that their starting centerfielder is the aging and injury prone Jim Edmonds, who is highly unlikely to make it through a whole season without several trips to the DL.

Arizona Diamondbacks - a fourth outfielder

After an offseason in which they did just about everything right, the team’s only discernable hole is in the outfield. The Snakes seem committed to going with youngster Justin Upton as their everyday rightfielder, despite his unsightly .221/.283/.364 line last season. But now that Arizona has traded away its two best outfield prospects in Carlos Quentin and Carlos Gonzalez, if Upton falters or if either of the other two guys go down for any extended period, the D-Backs’ only replacement option off the bench is some 28-year-old 4-A dude named Jeff Salazar, a guy who nobody would want to see playing in the outfield every day.

Colorado Rockies - a left-handed reliever

Like the Diamondbacks, the Rockies are another team with very few holes left, having fulfilled their promise to the fans to return last year’s World Series squad virtually intact. They did “lose” Kazuo Matsui to the Astros, but that may well be a blessing, as it opens up a spot for top infield prospect and purported defensive wizard Jayson Nix, and even if Nix falters, the Rocks still have several other options to choose from at the keystone, including prospects Omar Quintanilla, Jeff Baker, and Ian Stewart, and former Braves star Marcus Giles, whom they just inked to a minor-league deal.

The Rockies are set to turn over half their bullpen, however, with LaTroy Hawkins having already bolted for the Yankees and free agents Jorge Julio and Jeremy Affeldt set to depart as well. Although the Rockies were able to sign Luis Vizcaino to fill Hawkins’ shoes, they probably need to sign at least one more reliever, especially a left-hander to fill the situational lefty role Affeldt handled last season, as they have no particularly appealing internal options to replace him.

Los Angeles Dodgers - continue resisting the temptation to trade away their young guns

A good argument could be made that the Dodgers could have improved their team dramatically by making no moves whatsoever this offseason, and just letting their highly touted, major-league ready prospects have a chance to show what they can do.

Of course, Ned Colletti being Ned Colletti, he had to go out and sign at least a few big names, giving fairly outrageous contracts to outfielder Andrew Jones and Japanese import Hiroki Kuroda. But so far he has resisted the deluge of trade offers for coveted young players like Matt Kemp, Clayton Kershaw, and James Loney, and if he can keep on resisting those offers, as well as the temptation to block them any further with free agent signings, the Dodgers should be in pretty good shape to make a run at the playoffs this season.

San Francisco Giants - EVERYTHING

Here is a short list of the things the Giants need: a first baseman, a second baseman, a third baseman, a starting pitcher, a closer, and three other relievers of any ability. Outside of the outfield (Rowand, Roberts, Randy Winn), and the young arms in the rotation (Cain, Lowry, Lincecum), this team is going to be absolutely terrible, and they have no promising prospects of any real note on the way either. The Giants are well nigh a stone cold lock to have the worst offense in the National League this year.

Via Mudville.

Colorado’s Rookie League team in Casper, Wyoming, has changed its name.

The Casper Rockies are now the Casper Ghosts.

If you’re worried that Casper, who is a friendly ghost, isn’t tough enough to instill fear in opponents, don’t. The team has placed menacing looking ghosts on its caps. And better yet, the ghost emblems glow in the dark. Truly awesome.

I’m not sure how I feel about the Casper name change. But I suppose there are some towns that just demand certain names (see: Macon Whoopee). The ghosts were, I suspect, inevitable. Are the Butte (Idaho) Pirates next?

I live in Tucson. I just moved here about three months ago. Recently, I told you that the local minor league team was leaving town.

Now it looks like spring training might be leaving for the sucktastic shores of the Phoenix metro area. The White Sox, the Diamondbacks and the Rockies all play their March games in Tucson.

Here’s why they might leave:

• Goodyear, a Phoenix suburb, is building a stadium for the Cleveland Indians for 2009 and is in talks with the Rockies about the team moving its spring training home there.
• The White Sox have already announced plans to move to Glendale for the 2009 season. BUT, they are contractually obligated to find a replacement team in order to break their lease at Tucson Electric Park, which runs through 2012.
• If the White Sox move to Glendale and spring training in Tucson is reduced to two teams, the Rockies and the Arizona Diamondbacks can also break their leases.

So you can see how Tucson’s days of spring training baseball may be numbered.

Why does this matter? Because Tucson is a real place with real people and real buildings. This town has culture. I tell people lots of towns have lots of kitschy bars. But Tucson’s bars are kitschy by virtue of the fact that they just haven’t changed anything in the last 50 years. And I think that’s awesome.

The Phoenix suburbs are a monument to all that is soulless in America. They are shoddy modern construction. They are chain restaurants. They are sprawl.

Don’t let Tucson baseball die. If you’re a Tucson resident, write your local elected official. If you’re a Rockies, White Sox or Diamondbacks fan, call or email the team and tell them that Phoenix sucks and you don’t ever want to go there to watch a baseball game.

And if you’re smart, you’ll buy a plane ticket to Tucson right now and come watch baseball in Tucson this spring, while you still can.

Tonight, the Colorado Rockies will try to forestall what increasingly looks like the inevitable: a fresh round of World Series rings for the Boston nine. How could they do it? Some thoughts:

1. Their Opening Day starter, Aaron Cook, will make his first start since August 10, and he needs to come up huge. The Red Sox offense is on fire right now. Can Cook smother them? Personally, I doubt it. But you know what they say; momentum is that day’s starting pitcher. Cook has a daunting task in front of himself: leave the ball too much over the plate, and these Red Sox will give it a ride. But miss the plate, and these Red Sox are happy to take the walk. He’ll have to find the tiny scrap of middle ground.

2. Their offense needs to wake up. Last night they showed some promising signs and managed to hit the ball hard off the Red Sox bullpen, but they ultimately fell short. They need every hit they can get at this point, and it doesn’t matter whether they’re hitting end-of-the-bat dying quails or tearing the cover off the ball. How can they accomplish this? For one, by taking a page from Boston’s playbook: wear out the opposing pitcher. Despite spending parts of two seasons in the majors, Jon Lester has not yet settled in as the Red Sox organization hoped he would. When they were prospects together, his stuff was considered on par with Jonathan Papelbon’s. But in the big leagues, Lester has struggled with his command. Despite having an 11 and 2 record, he has a career 4.68 ERA and an average walk rate of about 4.4 walks-per-game. He also relies on a huge curveball that may be harder to deploy in that Rocky Mountain altitude. Plus, he’s spent the last month coming out of the bullpen. How many pitches can he really throw tonight? The Rockies showed last night they can hit the Boston bullpen, so if the Rockies hitters relax, face Lester with patience, and chase him early, they have an excellent shot at keeping Boston’s champagne on ice.

3. Speaking of relaxing, that will be the main key for the Rockies in this game. They need to take it one pitch at a time, one at-bat at a time, one inning at a time. The looks on their faces last night were understandable—-and they’ve looked lost this whole Series—-but that’s not the way to win ballgames. They need to remember that, by rights, they don’t even belong here. At the beginning of September, they weren’t even on the radar screen. The Rockies need to have fun out there—they need to play like they have nothing to lose. At this point, the pressure should be all on the Red Sox to close the deal (or at least, that’s what the Rox should tell themselves). And though they haven’t looked like it this Series, if there’s one team that could recreate Boston’s 2004 feat of returning from a 3-0 series deficit, it is this masters-of-the-improbable Colorado ballclub.

Now, what do I think will actually happen tonight? I think the Red Sox will win. I think Jon Lester has been aching to pitch this game ever since he was in Little League. I think this is the game he dreamed of pitching when he was undergoing chemotherapy just 12 short months ago. I think Jon Lester was pissed about moving to the bullpen for the postseason and is burning to show his bosses what a mistake that was. I think Jon Lester is going to come up big tonight.

As advertised, I am live blogging Game 3 of the 2007 Fall Classic. But first, some preliminaries:

1. This new Fox postseason music. What do we make of it, sportsfans? Frankly, I was looking forward to the old music. It was, you know, sporty. But with the new music, I keep thinking someone on The West Wing is receiving a Congressional Medal of Honor.

2. As much as I personally want the Red Sox to win, if Josh Fogg can beguile the Red Sox we will be in for some fabulously awful headlines. What do you think? “Fogg Rolls In.” “Sox Lost in Fogg.” “Boston All Fogged Up.” It would be almost worth it. Almost.

3. Before things get underway, I just want to take a moment and recall the poignancy of the pitching matchup in Game 2. There’s Schilling, doing it with finesse and guile and wisdom and painting the corners. And boy does he look old. And there’s Ubaldo Jimenez, who looks like a terrified teenager, who has nasty stuff and his whole future ahead of him but who’s throwing the ball all over the place. It was almost like the passing of a baton. And Schilling, pulled by his manager, starts walking off the field—the Fenway Faithful rise to their feet, for this man who has given them so much—Schilling bites his lip—and—AND!—Fox cuts to commercial. Thanks, Fox.

And now, the game.

Read the rest of this entry »

The tag cloud in this blog is a one-eyed monster and said eye is none other than a tag that spells the name of a certain team with red stockings. Lest we forget there are two teams in this year’s World Series, I decided to compile some random links concerning the Other team.

» Consumerist sheds a light on the ticket fiasco in Denver:

The FBI is investigating after the Colorado Rockies blamed an “external, malicious attack” for the meltdown that prevented fans from buying World Series tickets.

» The Feds are on the case as well [BostonHerald]

» Game On, sez there’s an eerie similarity between the ‘96 Series and this year’s Fall Classic:

Today’s entry is inspired by the eerie similarity between the 1996 and 2007 World Series.

• 96-66: The regular season record of the Atlanta Braves (1996) and the Boston Red Sox (2007).

• 17: The combined number of runs scored through the first two games of each series — Atlanta 16, Yankees 1 and Boston 15, Colorado 2.

• 2-0: The advantage each “favorite” — Atlanta and Boston — held after Game 2.

» BigRapidsJackass at FanHome doesn’t like the shameless plugs Taco Bell is enjoying during each game:

Absolutely sickening. Doesn’t MLB have any standards anymore? They’ll take the highest bid and not even require the most minimal standards for separating advertising and coverage.

That Taco Bell thing is out of control. I absolutely refuse to believe that Royce Clayton spontaneously starts spouting off about Taco Bell in the dugout when he happens to be mic’d. A shameless plug, and then they repeat it in Game 2. Followed up by a pre-wired interview with some Taco Bell exec in the stands.

Oh, and by the way Ellsbury’s “stolen base” should’ve been recorded by the scorer as “took 2nd base on defensive indifference.” Screw your free taco, that was no stolen base.

» Taking it to another level. David Kuo writes in his J-Walking blog at Beliefnet.com:

That makes me think that maybe Jesus wants the Rockies to get swept in four games by the mighty Sox just so they can show the world that their faith in him is such that they will positively rejoice at the Sox victory. How extraordinary would it be for the Rockies to gather on their field if the Sox win and applaud? What an amazing witness for the transformative power of Jesus would it be if the Rockies doused the Sox in champagne and celebrated their victory and praised God all the time. That would make people wonder about Jesus.

» And finally, Cubby-Blue illustrates what getting picked-off must feel like to Matt Holiday.

Man, the Rockies are toast…

As some of you may know, the Rockies have had one of their own fall prey to the UFH police. So it’s only fitting that one Todd Helton makes a cameo in this edition of UFH’s Most Wanted alongside the culrpit, Jamey Carroll.

A smooth man with his glove, Carroll’s smoothness went a little to his head, as he is now committing a copycat crime in trying to sport The Stash ala Jason Giambi.  Sure Giambi’s was a horrendous best of nature all in it’s own, but Carroll’s is a very feeble attempt at suave. Enough to prompt fellow teammate (and UFH parter in crime) Todd Helton to mock it in some fashion. Which, of course, is a nice segue way into a very appropriate World Series Write Your Own Caption.