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….

 

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Phillies Win Home Opener….

Phillies home opener against the Washington Nationals may not have played out the way Cole Hamels wanted it too, but he still got the win even after giving up 6 hits and 4 runs through 5.2 innings having thrown 109 pitches.

Well I had started to call the Nationals the ‘Pesky Gnats’ since they can be a little troublesome as the Mets found out, then I got to thinking, well I don’t want to insult to many people early on in the season, I have almost met my quota for April and it’s only the 12th, so I checked to make sure there are no ball teams using the name. I guess they say you learn something everyday, well I found out the Savannah Sand Gnats exist and I was even more surprised to find out they are a Mets affiliate, that I think is just too funny considering the trouble they had with the ‘G-less’ Nats over the weekend.

Back to the game, 5th inning Chase Utley hit his bomb as part of the 5 run 5th, which obviously got Utley running the bases…

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…add the 5 runs in the 5th to the 2 runs in the 4th and that was it for the Phillies, the ‘G-less’ Nats scored 1 run in the 2nd and 3 in the 4th which was all they could muster, the Phillies used Ryan Madson to close the game….

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….while Lidge is in recovery, Madson picked up his second save of the season to give the Phillies a 7-4 win.

Day off tomorrow, so all eyes are on the Yankees home opener against the Angels, no I haven’t turned my AL allegiance to the Yankees, I will simply be watching to see if I win the ‘Cookies Contest’ from ‘Confessions of a She Fan’, if you didn’t already enter, then tough luck too late, if you did hope you didn’t pick the same score as me ’cause I never win, but if I do win the cookies they will be going to someone who’ll be far more appreciative of cookies in a Yankee Stadium tin….

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….so for tomorrow only go Yankees beat the Angels by a score of 7-3.

Other News
Jimmy Rollins was out with a calf strain and Jayson Werth was replaced in the outfield with hip soreness. How long either will be out is unknown or if they will be out past the day off tomorrow.


Phillies Sweep Astros – Halladay goes 50 and 150

Roy ‘The Doc’ Halladay threw a complete game today as the Phillies win completed a sweep against the Houston Astros. The remarkable thinghalladay-1.jpg about this for Halladay was the MLB leading 50th complete game for an active pitcher, it also posted Halladay’s 150th win, just think about that, every 3 wins he pitches a complete game, at that pace he could pitch around 6 or 7 complete games this year.

The Phillies picked up their 5th win of the season behind Halladay in the lowest scoring game they have had this season, in fact it’s the first game they didn’t get double digit hits. The 2-1 win is still a win and gives the Phillies a 5-1 road trip as they head back to CBP for the home opener against the Washington Nationals tomorrow afternoon. Lets hope the Phillies have more success than the Mets did at home against those pesky Nats (gnats).


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….

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….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….

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….‘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….

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….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…

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…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….

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…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…

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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…

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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.


Opening Day in Washington…

It was the opening day at Nationals Park in Washington, and visiting the Washington for the joyous occasion were the Philadelphia Philles. As with past years, it has been customary for the President to throw the ceremonial first pitch at the opening day game, President Obama, seemed somewhat indecisive and although wanted to promote change, felt tied to old habits

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….as he made his way to the rubber in his Washington Nationals coat, he pulled out his Chicago White Sox hat and placed it on his head. It was a thanks for inviting me, but I’d rather be in Chicago type action, which I am sure was amusing to some, but maybe a little insulting to the team which, after all is the local team for the White House.

I am not sure if this was just another one of those bad omens for the Nationals or if everything today was going to have an element of embarrassment about it.

As I showed on an earlier post the Nationals website declared

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….‘GET YOUR RED ON’ well the Phillies certainly did that today and made the Nats see red, Phillie red…

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….as Ryan Howard hit a 2 run bomb and Placido Polancohalladay-1.jpg hit a grand slam as the Phillies posted 11 runs on the board, even the other Phillies new acquisition got in on the act, yes I am talking about Roy Halladay. He managed to not only have a great day on the mound by striking out 9 over 7 innings, giving up 6 hits, 2 walks and 1 run, he also swung the bat picking up a hit and an RBI, in fact the only Phillie that stood in the batters box and didn’t get a hit was Greg Dobbs in the 9th when he a fly ball as he pinch hit for Baez.

I am not sure whether my sarcastic ramblings about the Nationals website made a difference or if the whole new MLB website upgrade they have gone through was the cause, but the Nationals no longer have the slogan GET YOUR RED ON on the website, in fact they have nothing more than a city skyline with the words… NatsTown…


A New Begining….

It’s finally here. Spring is Sprung…

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…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…

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…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.

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N. L. East Crystal Ball….

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As the National League East is the division the Phillies are in, I have decided to review the NL East a little differently than I did the other divisions, but not much differently.

Anyone with any sort of technical savvy should be aware, that all major league websites are controlled and sourced through a centralized system, which is why they basically have the same layout and the same MLB news items, there are areas which are specific to the actual clubs feeds, but still the look and feel of each website is similar to the extent that if you find something on one about that club, you should be able to find the same thing on another clubs site about that particular club. Well if you’re still following this thought then the rest should make some sense.
I decided to review specific things that may be of interest to one fan or another and I looked at the same on each website, this is how it turned out.

The Washington Nationals will without question be at the bottom of the division again this year, even though they have a player that if utilized could be a contender for the 2010 ROY award, that would be Ian Desmond. Anyway I digress, the Nats website…

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…is headlined “Get Your RED On” What the hell does that mean? I looked RED up on google, bing even yahoo, but couldn’t find anything that remotely related to visiting the Washington Nationals and cheering them on, is this just more inaccurate promotional work coming out of Washington. I hunted for the Nats mascot and any ballgirls or cheerleaders or similar and found this, a mascot called ‘Screech‘ which looked a lot like ‘Swoop’ in a Nats uniform, which was kind of ironic since they were also advertising the Eagles this summer, just in case anyone is confused, that’s the band Eagles not the NFL team they are promoting. I couldn’t find any ball girls, softball team, cheerleaders or anything like that on the Nationals website which probably means they are all working as interns somewhere in DC.


The Florida Marlins, will try very hard this year, but will only manage to be good enough to finish 4th in this division, the Marlins website however…

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…claimed ‘Serious Fun’ and invited people to ‘Get In On It’, okay I have to ask, “get in on what?”, then I found the Mermaids and realized what the fun was and what they wanted you to get in on, so no need to google, bing or yahoo anything. I did try to find out what the entry requirements were to be a Mermaid, cause it looked at first glance that they had just got together a group of Hooters employees, but I found that you can actually hire these Mermaids for private functions, and there’s me thinking that would be classed as pimping and be illegal, but I guess Miami-Dade anything goes especially when you have trouble voting on issues.

The Atlanta Braves have an excellent pitching rotation, if all are healthy and pitching to form, but they lack some other factors which will be needed to make a run at this division, they should finish 3rd again this year thanks mostly to the pitching staff. The Braves website…
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…continues to tell everyone how wonderful Turner Field is, even though it hasn’t been that way for a number of years now. There was some good news though I found out that the Braves have a mascot called ‘Homer’ so i looked around for the big yellow headed dude with the pot belly eating donuts, but alas all I found was what looked like a poorly cloned ‘Mr Met’. The good news was they actually appear to have some hot chicks still living in Atlanta, I am not sure being a member of something called the ‘Tomahawk Team’ is going to inspire a future mate to actually close their eyes and fall asleep with one of them in the same building never mind room.


The New York Mets if everyone is healthy, especially Reyes who needs to stays off the sauce, or whatever he’s been on, should make a vast change from last year, still it won’t be enough to win the division. The Mets website though maybe even worse than the Nats

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….there is lots of invites for you to spend money, they promote a belief in comebacks, obviously they have Mr. Met, but he was hard to find and I had to surf via pages telling me I can join this or that for a nominal fee. It seems to be all about Citi Field, which is fine since they spent a bundle of money on it, but it seems there are no hot chicks left in New York that like the Mets, or at least I couldn’t find anything on the website.

The Philadelphia Phillies this year will go back to the big stage, after winning the division and the repeating for the 3rd time as N L Champs. Of course like any other prediction it’s based on the players being healthy, except for the Phillies where it’s based on Lidge being on the DL all season long. The Phillies website…

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…Okay so I am more comfortable with the Phillies website and can find things easily, there is no tacky slogan, although the Phillies do use a couple in commercials, the mascot is easily found, which as you can see, I caught him making sure there was space for the 2010 trophy. Anyone that’s seen a game in Philadelphia at the Bank or even prior at the Vet, will know the Phillies have ball girls, who are on hand for every home game and I understand are all fairly well accomplished softball players, sit near one if you can they are also at times very good conversationalists. So to sum
up the NL East without a biased view, the Phillies have the best looking ball girls, best looking website and the best chance to win the division again.


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

trademarks,

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


The Race is on…

Race for the N.L. East Division Title…

Looking at how the Phillies have been playing of late, I thought this division was going to be the closest run contest, but having seen how the Rockies and Dodgers are playing, the N.L. West could produce the biggest upset in September.

The teams in the N.L. East will all play a major role in the way this division unfolds during September, everybody plays everybody, so I am going to do a brief review of each team and the role they could play.

The Washington Nationals (47-90) in my opinion will have the biggest impact on the outcome of this division race. There current strategy seems to be reviewing players and setting up the team to go into the off season, so they can best decide who to trade and who to keep, plus they are looking at what areas they will need to fill during the off-season so as to not end up with the worst record in baseball in the 2010 season.

The Nats play everyone in the division which means they will be a spoiler and a helper, who they will help and who’s hope’s they will spoil is yet to be seen. They could even have a hand in the N.L. West with (2) 3 games still scheduled against the Dodgers. They host 3 games against the Phillies starting today (Tuesday, Sept 8th) and with the way the Phillies have been playing of late anything could happen.

The New York Mets (62-75) currently are in an ‘argumentum ad misericordiam’ state. They cannot decide if self-pity or pity from the fans right, considering the new stadium, the pre-season hype then the injuries, the ball park not very player friendly and of course the cross town Yankees doing so well, they are desperately seeking a ‘It’s NOT our fault’ acceptance from the not so fair weather fans.

Although they do play everyone in the division, the role of the Mets is more likely to be a deciding factor in where and how the Marlins and Braves finish.

The Atlanta Braves (70-67) are fighting to hold onto a winning record and at the same time desperately trying to stay in the wild card race. They are only 8 games back in the division race, but with Florida and the Phillies ahead of them, they would have to sweep both team during games this month and they only have 3 against the division leading Phillies. the wild card has it’s own challenges, currently 7 1/2 games out they have to hope the 3 teams ahead of them completely collapse.

They will probably be more inclined to spoil the chances of the Marlins while maintaining a winning record this year.

The Florida Marlins (72-65) are the FISH with a WISH. It’s tough to decide which is the hardest task for them, the wild card or division, both are very hard mountains to climb. Currently standing 6 games back in the division and 5 1/2 games back in the wild card it’s a 50/50 chance to make either one. They do have 6 games left against the Phillies and they did sweep the Phillies at CBP and the Phillies have been struggling of late, so there has to be hope in the hearts of the Marlins fans.

The Philadelphia Phillies (77-58) have a hard schedule ahead, with just 2 days off, but 2 double headers to play. They will play 6 games outside of the division, tough games against central division teams, but more importantly the in division games are critical. With Florida and Atlanta hoping for a shot the Phillies will have to bring the best of the season together to finish out on top.

A team in turmoil at the moment, with the starting pitching being the only element of the team delivering a winning performance, the offence needs to step up and the bull pen needs to refocus. the offense it’s all about the players, Raul Ibanez seems to be on a slow climb from his slump, the rest of them have to become more consistent, the bull pen is solid except for 2 or 3 players, who Charlie seems to favor.

It’s all about choices and this man has some to make…

Make the right choices and the Phillies can be in the post season shooting for a repeat, the wrong choices and the season ends October 4th.