MLBlogosphere – Latest Leaders – March 2010

Did I miss this or did it not get promoted..? am I allowed to do this..? is it updated or is it still being worked on..? all questions I can’t answer… oh well, with a day off yesterday and not winning the cookie contest, (sob, sob), things are slow so here is the list that I missed, how about you..?

MLBlogosphere Latest
Leaders – March 2010


I’m thinking maybe our illustrious leader Mark is working on that wish list, or more importantly my visitor magnet, so people just come to my blog.

Thanks to all who read by the way, I did make #26 on the list…

Although I need one that will stop people like the dude from this post ‘Real Men of Genius’ write stuff like this: “I don’t care about your Phillies and your crappy blog.” compliments of

Phillies, Mets, Yankees, Red Sox, Rays, Blue Jays, Orioles, Twins, Tigers, White Sox, ChiSox, Indians, Royals, Angels, Rangers, Mariners, A’s, Athletics, Marlins, Braves, Nationals, Nats, Cardinals, Red Birds, Brewers, Reds, Astros, Pirates, Dodgers, Rockies, Giants, Padres, Diamondbacks, D’Backs, Arizona, San Diego, San Francisco, Colorado, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, Houston, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, Chicago, St. Louis, Washington, New York, Atlanta, Florida, Philadelphia, Oakland, Seattle, Texas, Kansas City, Cleveland, Tribe, Detroit, Minnesota, mini-soda, Baltimore, Toronto, Canada, Tampa Bay. Boston, BoSox

Jimmy Rollins could be on DL from today, so the great dilemma will be who to put on the bench instead of Castro, while he fills in at shortstop…. how about Brown, I know most think he’s not ready and it could hurt him sitting him on the bench for 2 weeks instead of daily play in the minors, but I say, he’s paid to do a job let him do it….

 


Real Men of Genius….

We’ve all heard the Bud Light radio commercials making good humor of certain creativeness of over zealous guys, if you haven’t listen up…..

http://www.soundboard.com/sb/playerskins/singleTrackPlayer3.swf?&txtColor=0xFFFFFF&trackURL=http://www.soundboard.com/mediafiles/MzQxODcwMzM0MTg0OA_f9FbqYeM_2fRo.mp3&vol=70&action=start&title=Over%20Zealous%20Foulball%20Catcher&photo=http://www.soundboard.com/memberphoto/7286703728681.gif

Well here’s a couple of Real Men of Genius….

wade-mills.jpg

….who continued with the Budweiser advertising theme last night. At the start of the game which continued for just 2.2 inning, these Real Men of Genius in actions alone said to the Philadelphia Phillies….

budnorris.jpg

….‘This BUD’s For You’, and the Phillies soaked it up for 3 runs in the 1st then continued to hit, but for the saving grace of this lone Astro on more than one occasion….

bourne.jpg

….the Bourne Supremacy, the Phillies would have probably scored well into double digit runs last night.

The Phillies bats have been alive from day one, there was just one guy who was on a 3 game slump, and he managed to pop a couple of big hits last night…

ibanez.jpg

…so, welcome to the list of hitters Raul Ibanez. The Phillies in just 4 games have managed to send 151 hitters to the plate, who have produced 32 runs on 52 hits. Only 4 homers so far but they have 29 RBi’s covered 81 total bases, walked 26 times and more surprisingly they have only struck out 18 times.

As they remain in Houston over the weekend, tonight the ageless wonder, Jamie Moyer, takes the mound for the first time this season.


Inside Washington…

Washington is still in turmoil and has been exposed in a similar light to the outing of J. Edgar Hoover, yes I can confirm from ‘inside sources‘ that more cross dressing is going on in Washington than you think. This time it’s not some guy that has similarities to that of Adolf Hitler, just with different hatreds, yet weird secrets. It’s not some super scoop of President Obama in the First Lady’s, closet playing dress-up, this my friends is a simple cross dressing in plain sight, like that of Milton Bradley in a Mariners uniform instead of a Cubs uniform, it is non other than the leader in Washington

nats-riggleman.jpgRiggleman, dressed as a manager with his friend and cohort John McLaren dressed as a bench coach, yes these two are playing role reversal and they still can’t produce a winning team.

While the Atlanta Braves and the media hype around them promote the newbie Heyward to heights of greatness that he’ll never live up too, the Washington Nationals and it’s media barely make a ripple over the existence of the short stop Ian Desmond….

nats-desmond.jpg

…and while they don’t give this kid more national coverage he will be in danger of loosing out in a fight for the Rookie of the Year purely because of media hype and coverage.

This however is not uncommon in Washington as we have seen in the past and continue to see as they play down one of the best 3rd basemen in the National League…

nats-zimmerman.jpg

Ryan Zimmerman. This maybe Washington’s way of hiding the facts so they don’t lose the fight, had this been any other town then Zimmerman would have been in a different uniform by now gathering the glory of at least some post season games, instead he has to sit back and accept that quietly he will get his ‘Silver Slugger’ and ‘Gold Glove‘ awards without any national media coverage.

What else was uncovered in Washington this week, yes more role reversals, an unusual one this time involving Ryan Howard. The normally over-bearing size and height of Howard makes others feel and seem somewhat miniature in stature, however at first base this week…

howard-dunn.jpg

Adam Dunn gave Ryan Howard a small glimpse of that same feeling.

The Phillies are set to finish a 3 game stand in Washington today and hopefully continue the onslaught of runs, with 19 in 2 days it’s looking like a fruitful road trip has begun well for the Phillies. They will move on to Houston Friday and face a demoralized Astros, who were taken apart by the Giants over a 3 game set this week.


A New Begining….

It’s finally here. Spring is Sprung…

springavatarBYEBYE.jpg


…all the cheap shots at the American League teams are out of my system, until something really horrendous happens, it’s time to focus on the task at hand, supporting the Philadelphia Phillies through thick and thin, taking all the abuse other fans can give, and giving it back in the same good humored rivalry it is all meant.

Accepting that when my team does something, which to the average human, is totally off the wall and far out there, they are doing it for the best interests of the club and not to spite the fans.

Everyone gets a clean slate, even umpire Ed Rapauno, gets a fresh start and can step out without fear of humiliation in Philadelphia, until that first call anyway. It’s a time when Jimmy Rollins and Jose Reyes have the same number of stolen bases, or a time when even Brad Lidge is no longer a…

kloser.jpg


…loser.

It truly is a special time, the Cubs have the same record as the Cardinals, Milton Bradley has as many RBI’s as Albert Pujols, and any player can claim to equal Ryan Howards home run quantity.

The time has come to start waving those towels, the time has come to grill in the parking lot, the time has come to never be short of beer, the time has come to start screaming LET’S GO….


PHILLIESRED.jpg – peter



So It Begins….

Sunday evening is the opening day game for the 2010 season. The New York Yankees visit Fenway Park to take on the Boston Red Sox. There is so much wrong with the opening to this years season, it’s the 30th time these 2 teams have played the opener.

First of all the current reigning World Series champions open the season on the road, it wouldn’t be so bad if it was a team that had little or no fan base, even with the hyped up pricing at Yankee stadium the fans do splurge for special occasions and attend games, so that’s not an excuse, but we have heard Yankee fans whine before and this will just let them whine some more.

The game is in Boston, okay so this is purely an observational comment, that unfortunately I have no substance to back it up with hard facts, I could maybe invent an inside source, but that would just be playing like the media boys and being a politician about it, anyway back on point, during the off-season there appeared to be an inordinate amount of subliminal promotion of the Boston Red Sox.

The teams themselves have what is probably a fan base that consists of arguably the highest percentage of arrogant fans in baseball and probably the world of sports, not only do both sets of fans believe they follow the greatest sports franchise that was ever created on this planet, they also believe that they are the only fans to know the facts, that they are the only ones to see the truth in plays, when the team has a call against them that is seen as an injustice to the whole concept of baseball. They will also feel that anyone who dares to write or speak any kind of non-supportive words or sentences will be a premeditated, merciless intent of attack against them personally and therefore will not find any element of humor of any form in such types of communication, and thus will feel to enter into a communicative exchange or even make comment on such a expression, would be seen to actually accept that there maybe an element of truth in what was communicated or that not everyone believes these 2 teams are the be all end all of sports franchises, thus they stick with communicating among themselves, unless they sense a turncoat that they can easily convert.

So, having said all that, not all fans of these 2 franchises are like this, just enough to warrant the expressive terms used to identify either of these clubs.

Little known things – fact or fiction 

Boston Red Sox was known as the Red Stockings, Stockings was changed to Sox to eliminate the growing belief that many Bostonian fans were cross dressing transvestites.
‘Red Sox Nation’ was originally a derogatory term, inferring the fans were a group with an imaginary history or goal.

Yankees – Yankee was originally used to reference people from the Boston area, descendants of the English.
Yankee or Yank is commonly used to refer to anyone from the United States by other countries, sometimes but not always a derogatory inference.

Evil Empire, derogatory term, now embraced by many Yankee fans, also has been used to describe, USSR, British Empire, Xerox, Kodak, Walmart, Microsoft, all things or companies that either no longer exist or have self destructed from arrogance and are reformed in a smaller dose, or are on the verge of self destruction from internal arrogance with a GOD complex.

Now I have suitable provided sufficient data to ensure zero comments from either sets of fans, for the rest of us mere mortal baseball teams the season really starts on Monday and it will be a beginning of who knows what, it’s the start of a season of unknowns, all we know for sure is that our teams will participate and our support for them will not falter. No matter how good or bad they perform we will continue to publish post that ultimately support them to the end.

philliesvariety.jpg

 
 


On Reflection….

Just in case no one even noticed, the name changed from ‘Outside the
Phillies Looking In
‘ to ‘Phillies Outside‘ as part of a concerted effort
to make everything a little more unified, in other words, most
everything else is labeled Phillies Outside so is this blog now, so it’s easier for me, not
that anyone gives a crap, and yes you will still find the same
rambling, sarcastic, drivel as always here, unless I am feeling
particularly friendly then I may up the sarcasm a little more, no it’s not always like a kindergarten playground where you punch the ones you really like, sometimes you actually have to smack the crap out of someone cause they deserve it…

On
to the post at hand, a review of my past predictions and I can assure
everyone that there is absolutely no bias on these predictions, there is
no hatred targeted at any team, and just because some see a certain
blue team as the ‘Evil Empire’ and the fact that some Philadelphia
Phillies
players have inferred a wish to exact revenge on that said evil empire,
I would like to assure everyone that none of that was taken into
consideration when constructing my predictions.

I see the American
League like this:

NOny.jpg

…Yes much to the pleasure of some and displeasure of others I did not select the Yankees to make the post season this year, there jump to the top of the leader board for most global denominated currency spent on average per player for a sports franchise for last year, (in case you didn’t know, the most spent per player on average is normally monopolized by English Premiership Football Teams or soccer teams to those less edumacated, last year the Yankees jumped into the top 10 at number 1), this will come back to bite them this year, as it has with other sports franchises before them in there respective sporting championships. The American League playoff picture will look like this:

Seattle Mariners vs Chicago White Sox – Mariners win
Boston Red Sox vs Tampa Bay Rays – Rays win

ALCS Mariners vs Rays – Mariners win

I see the National League like this:

NOny.jpg

…No I didn’t make a mistake with the picture, this is just a reminder that the Yankees couldn’t even buy there way in via the National League, although inside sources inferred that they tried, by way of offering Mr. McCourt some under the table assistance with the silencing and/or gratifying of the soon to be ex-Mrs McCourt. The National League playoff picture will look like this:

St. Louis Cardinals vs Colorado Rockies – Cardinals win
Philadelphia Phillies vs Los Angeles Dodgers – Phillies win

NLCS – Phillies vs Cardinals – Phillies win

The World Series – Phillies vs MarinersPhillies win in 5

For all those skeptics out there, in the words of Dwayne Johnson “It doesn’t matter ,,,,,,,” as (what appears to be a couple of suited jabronees) find out…




N. L. West Crystal Ball…

NLwestcrystalball.jpg

The National League West is probably the hardest of the divisions to predict a winner and loser, not because the teams are so good, more because the teams are more evenly matched than the other divisions or in technical terms ‘more sucky’. So with this in mind, the division can change on the win or loss of a couple of key games or even players hitting the DL, or hitting something other than a baseball this year.

The San Diego Padres fans, like most in this division don’t need to spend much this year, but….

petcopark.jpg…should enjoy what they have, while they’ve got
it. Who knows how long PetCo Park will actually be PetCo Park, and lets
face it there is not much going to happen here over the next few years,
with Jeff Moorad needing another $145 million in 4 years to secure
ownership, he and his financing buddies will have essentially spent $290
million to own a $200 million debt that has almost no chance of winning
anything anytime soon.

The San Francisco Giants fans, should also enjoy more time at home this
year and do nothing but…

sanfran.jpg…try and enjoy the sounds and sights of your town and be thankful that Alcatraz is no longer operational, otherwise that’s where you’d have to go to watch games, because this year it’s going to seem like the Giants players and organization are nothing more than criminals taking your money for no return, the biggest disappointment for these fans will be the lack-luster performance of their star freak, Lincecum.

The Arizona Diamondbacks fans, should like so many others…

grandcanyon-2.jpg

…stay close to home, go visit the Grand Canyon if you haven’t already, because by the end of the season it’ll feel like the D’Backs have left a huge gaping hole in your life with the almost but not quite season.


The Los Angeles Dodgers fans, are going to have to spend the most in this division and trust me when I say you’ll need to find the perfect…

therapistcartoon.jpg
…therapist. The reasons will become many and varied as the season progresses, but at the start of the season you are going to need a therapist, to get past the waring parents of the Dodgers as they go through a bitter divorce knowing the only ones to suffer are the kids or in this case the fans, then the fact that knowing you have another shot at the post season, by way of the ‘Wild Card’ spot, so you can be counseled for what can only be described as ‘PhilliePhobia’, the undying need to lose to the Phillies in post season play, and of course the Manny virus will hit this year and fans will need therapy to maintain there undying love for a guy that is trying to get his bobble-head night changed to a male version of Raggedy Ann dolls…


The Colorado Rockies fans, need to take lots of pictures so they can…

mountains.jpg

…enjoy their trip to the top of the (Rocky) NL West Mountain this year, because the trip on this rocky road to the top of the division will result in a long hard fall early in post season play.

any sarcasm is not meant to offend,
unless it does, then consider the possibilities of more during the
season.

Other News:
A-Rod once again managed to avoid the face to face with the FBI, by ‘mutual’ agreement, yeah okay that’s about as believable as that other New York teams Reyes having a magical quick recovery from the thyroid imbalance or did that HGH just get flushed from his system.

trademarks,
trade names,
copyrights and patents are the property of their respective owners.


Media just love the Yankees

LCS kicks off tomorrow with the Phillies and Dodgers, this series in itself should be full of some amazing games. Since the division series games fizzled with commanding sweeps and the only real intense excitement was the ending of the last 2 games between the Rockies and the Phillies, then the fans should hope for and expect both the ALCS and NLCS to be jam packed with intense exciting moments as a build up to the World Series… but will they, as I read and watch the stories that take us up to the start of the LCS games the thing I notice is the New York Yankees, that’s it nothing else. Some by line, small print or 2 minute segment may include a brief look at the Angels, Dodgers and at times the Phillies, but everything seems to be centered around the Yankees, even the opening page of these MLB Blogs has a headline indicating 4 teams in the LCS yet pictures just 1 rotation, and they highlight a New York MLB Blog which focuses on the Yankees rotation, okay so they mention in passing other teams, but it’s about the Yankees. I am beginning to believe that they spent so much money on the team and stadium that they are now stuck for advertising and so are taking hand-outs from all sources.

Leaving others struggling for scraps…

 

Causing confusion amongst the remainder… 

Or maybe the lack of spotlight is giving the others chance to gather their thoughts for the games ahead and sleep off some of the pressure

(incase your wondering, it’s a high pressure bed with some eye candy of course)

It could always just be something plain and simple, like the sports media are all full of hot air...

 

and need the Yankees to draw attention to themselves. They can speculate all they want about ex-Yankee manager vs. current Yankee manager or an all LA World Series, unlike some other orchestrated sports the media does not control the outcome to increase ratings,

it will be, what it will be


Phillies head to NLCS…

The Phillies had to take the Rockie road to the NLCS


rockyroad.jpg

…It wasn’t easy by any means, but they made it in true Philadelphia style.

 

The team with the most comeback wins needed 2 more in Colorado, and on Sunday and Monday night the Phillies offence delivered…

 

offense.jpg 

 …and now with the Phillies will head to a warmer climate and more sensible game times (we hope) and meet the Dodgers in the start of the NLCS.

Now we are down to 4 teams and I have to say there is no clear front runner and there is no underdog.

For all 4 teams it must now be GAME ON….


Celebrations, Commiserations…

Celebrations are running
wild in Dodgertown following the sweep they imposed upon the St.
Louis Cardinals
, finishing them off on the road in the Red Birds
home park. This has definitely proven to the rest of the post season
teams that the Dodgers are a team on a mission and are prepared
to face all comers to achieve that goal.

Commiserations go out to all
Cardinal fans, without question I had expected this first round
series to be the one that could have gone the full 5 games. To me the
one, two punch of Carpenter and Wainwright was sure to
prove a tough match to win for any team even if they pitched on the
road. Unfortunately for the Red Birds this was not to be the
case, as with the regular season, more often than not teams traveling to
the west coast have had problems with the first couple of games in a
series.

The Phillies and the Rockies
endured an extra days rest due to weather conditions, this was to be
inevitable after Charlie Manuel selected Pedro Martinez as
the starting pitcher…

…Martinez has experience
more games where the weather has interfered with his starts in 2 months
than most pitchers experience in a season. For the Phillies we hope this
latest problem for Martinez’s start is a blessing in disguise.

With the extra day the
Phillies are sending J.A. Happ to the mound, yes he’s a rookie, but he’s
also the best rookie pitcher this year…

 

so tonight, weather permitting
the Rockies will host the Phillies, with the series tied at 1-1, this is
a game for the taking by either team to get the series lead.

The Yankees and the Angels
both on the road attempt to clinch sweeps today and move on, however the
Twins and the Red Sox, respectively stand in their way and
hope that they can produce the beginning of an insurmountable task of
winning 3 games in a row.

Today will definitely be a
day packed full of adventure, especially with the recent events that
have spot lighted umpires more than players.

For this fan I just have 2
things to say…

GO PHILLIES and GO EAGLES…


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