Untitled
A great filtered feed for sports news at any day/instant http://bit.ly/8O0Aek postrank sports news nfl ipl mlb nba
via Ping.fm
Explore Posterous
Search posterous
Search all posts and users. Type a name, type a favorite song title, whatever! See what comes up.
More posterous blogs
Here are posterous posts filed under mlb...
Where are we?
Lately, I have really been noticing what kind of spot we are in as a nation. In my opinion, we are in a terrible spot. I don't even know where to start. Well I guess I could start with out values, or the lack thereof. My grandfather once told me that, when a nation collapses, take the Roman Empire, it is because of two things. 1. The nation loses value of its dollar. 2. The nation loses its morals or values. We are losing our morals and values faster than I can write this blog, and our money is worth less than Canada, Yikes!! So you do that math and tell me what lies ahead for us in the future if we don't make a change as a nation.
The reason of my rant today, is mostly how, also in my opinion, professional athletes have become somewhat of a joke. In the past year we have seen such stories as one athlete who electroshocked and killed many dogs, or another who shot himself in the leg at a night club. Recently, we have encountered Tiger Woods' incident, the number 1 golfer in the world, where he crashed head-on into a tree practically in his front yard, causing $8000 in damage to his car, and is now being accused of having affairs with every girl in L.A. Now I have hung out with some wild dudes in my day, but none managed do accomplish that one. Smooth Tiger. All these people I just talked about are world known athletes looked up to my millions all over the world, including many children. Hmm. Now I from a small town, but the married guy who is screwing every gal in town, is a bad guy, but we still seems to love all these guys I listed above, doesn't make sense. It's like they go to jail for 2 years and are praised more when they are allowed back into the NFL, which is a whole other rant. ha
Then there is the steroids in baseball. This one really pisses me off, not so much that certain players have been caught using them because I believe at one time steroids were in every clubhouse around the MLB. The thing that really gets me is how they sit and lie about it until the grave when the whole world knows that they did. A-rod, in my mind is not someone to be idolized, I want to get that off my chest. He is a liar, a cheater, just a all around bad dude in my mind. But we idolize him for some reasons I don't know, oh I guess he's a really good baseball player, and some gals think he has a cute butt. So forget that he has used steroids damn near his whole career and then lied about it on national television to our faces, or that he was accused of tipping pitches to opponents. For those who don't know, that means he was standing on second base letting the other teams hitter know what pitches were coming. He wanted the other teams to catch up so he could have another chance to get up and hit a home run. Who cares right? He's a Yankee.
I think we as people have to really look at who we are choosing to be our role models before just putting them on a pedistal. It is not just athletes, there is a lot of wierdness going on right now in the world of fame. It is hard to write about, because I want to just go into every single story and pound my point in that some of these people should not be looked up to like they are, but it would take forever. I don't want to trash all athletes or anything like that, most of them are in fact good people, who are proud to be an elite like they are, and they act like it. But a few bad apples give a lot of them a bad name.
I understand shit happens, there are so many times I can recall doing something stupid that I should not have. Who hasn't ? But I do believe if you are man enough to make it to the spotlight and get yourself into a bad position by acting childish, you better be a man and admit it. It makes me respect them so much less when they lie, and it comes out two weeks later that they were guilty. Really, A-roid, you cousin' in the Dominican Republic was your source of steroids, I think that was Sammy Sosa's excuse too buddy.
My advice would be to be cautious when choosing role models, or someone to look up to. Look beyond those who can just shoot a nice jumper. Look for those who are really doing something good for the world and are legit, honest people. Those are the ones we should praise.
One Love, Tim
Tradin' times for the Tigers? Not so fast.
There's been much teeth-gnashing and wailing about the possibility the Tigers might trade Curtis Granderson and/or Edwin Jackson. There might even have been some rending of garments while I was out raking the leaves again; can't be sure. Displays of despair aside, I think trading either player, unless the team gets an unbelievable deal thrown at them (like a top-shelf shortstop/closer, corner outfielder and pitching prospect), is a big mistake. Here's why, and here's why both trades might happen anyway.
Curtis Granderson: Among the team's problems last year were a lack of speed, lack of left-handed bats and lack of power. And Granderson is a pretty speedy lefty hitter with plenty of pop. Sure, he regressed against lefty pitching last year and hit quite a few less doubles and triples than years past. But keep in mind that 2009 was the first year that he played regularly against lefties; even in 2008 he only played a percentage of the time against left-handed pitching. I don't think it's a stretch that a player as talented and smart as Granderson makes the needed adjustments and gets back on track atop the order in 2010. Plus, Grandy plays strong defense for a team that needs an outstanding centerfielder. Comerica Park is a huge outfield space to cover, and Granderson (usually) makes it look easy. Oh, and he's the face of the franchise. You deal Grandy, and you have to deal with a lot of peeved fans. Not to mention one less lefty bat, one less guy who can run, and 30 fewer homers (from a leadoff hitter to boot).
Edwin Jackson: Yes, he tailed off in the second half of the season. But he's still a young pitcher who throws hard, is durable and seems to still have room to learn and grow as a pitcher. Maybe the Tigers think Jeremy Bonderman is ready to come back and join Justin Verlander and Rick Porcello as the top three in the Tigers rotation. So what? You can never, ever have too much pitching. The Tigers have some good arms coming along, and Jackson could be a free agent in two years. But it's too early to worry about that. If you want to win in 2010, Jackson needs to be a Tiger. That Verlander-Jackson-Porcello trio atop the rotation immediately gives you a good shot at the Central Division title. (Sorry, I don't mean to damn those pitchers with faint praise.)
Bottom line, if the Tigers trade either Granderson or Jackson then the team finds itself immediately looking for players with the same attributes to replace them. Those are players that don't exist in the team's farm system right now, and would be as hard to come by in the trade/free agent market as Granderson and Jackson were for their new teams. Both players are hard-working and fan favorites, so there's no addition-by-subtraction factor (also known as, "Fernando Rodney may have saved a bunch of games last year, but it's OK if he leaves").
Why might it happen anyway? Because of the all the money the team has tied up in contracts for players who aren't worth what they're getting paid next year. Dontrelle Willis is unlikely to ever pitch for the Tigers again. Nate Robertson might be a fourth or fifth starter, or he might be cut in spring training. Carlos Guillen is an injury-prone player without a position. Magglio Ordonez is still productive, but making at least three times his market worth next season. In light of his lost summer and disastrous last week of the season, even Miguel Cabrera's contract doesn't look like a great deal at this point.
So the only way it makes sense to trade either Granderson or Jackson is if the Tigers get a blockbuster package of players and get to dump the contract of Willis, Robertson or Guillen on someone else in the process. The Tigers spent more on payroll, adjusted for team worth, than any team in baseball last year. They'd like to get that number down.
What I would advise the team to do (and they haven't asked, for some reason) is to bite the bullet and hold on to Granderson and Jackson. Both have affordable contracts in the near term, and both could be All-Stars for years to come. Especially in Granderson's case, dealing him would blow a whole in the center of the team, figuratively and otherwise. I say the Tigers swallow hard and learn their lesson from giving out big contracts so freely – something that needed to be done in Maggs' case when the franchise was a laughingstock, but is no longer necessary or a good bit of business. I have a feeling that Mike Ilitch feels the same way, or at least I hope he does. But punishing the 2010 Tigers for the bad contracts handed out in 2006-08 doesn't make much sense. And given how much of a challenge filling Comerica Park is going to be next year as it is, do you really want to give fans any more excuses to stay away from the stadium?
G-Money was robbed. Stolen: one Gold Glove.
It's baseball awards season, and the 2009 American League Gold Gloves were announced yesterday. Placido Polanco was the only Tigers winner despite the team's overall strong work with the leather this year. At first I was peeved that Brandon Inge didn't get one for his acrobatic stylings at 3B, ditto for Curtis Granderson in the outfield (despite some late-season oopsies). But what really breaks my bat is the idiocy of Minnesota's Joe Mauer winning the Gold Glove at catcher over Gerald Laird. Laird played 151 more innings behind the dish than Mauer – the equivalent of more than 15 games, math majors – and had the same number of passed balls: 9. Oh, and Laird caught 42 percent of the runners trying to steal on him. Mauer managed to stop only 26 percent. To be fair, Mauer does have much thicker sideburns than Laird.
Mauer's going to win the AL MVP award, so maybe the baseball writers were just giving him a little double-dip. Morons. Enjoy the hardware, Twins fans. At least until Mauer is wearing pinstripes and catching CC Sabathia for the Yankees in 2011, that is. (By the way, Google "Gerald Laird G-Money". I'll wait. … Now look at the sixth item on the list: my Tigers drinking game. And to think my parents wanted me to be a doctor-lawyer-priest!)
Welcome back, Tom Brookens.
OK, so the results weren't so great the last time the Tigers brought back members of the 1984 World Series squad as part of the coaching staff (see Trammell, Alan, and Gibson, Kirk; also, worst season in club history). But I'm glad to see the Tigers name Tom Brookens first base, outfield and running coach. Brooksie was one of my favorite Tigers. Every year, the team came to spring training determined to find someone else to play third base: Howard Johnson, Barbaro Garbey, Lou Whitaker (remember the Chris Pittaro experiment at second base?), etc. More often than not, gritty-gutty Tom Brookens played a majority of the games at the hot corner – except in 1984, when HoJo was there and Brookens played short when Tram hurt his knee and was on the DL for a while. Brookens was never flashy, but he got the job done in the field, was a reliable .250-ish hitter and had a knack for the clutch hit.
He was also my sister's favorite Tiger. I think that had something to do with the mustache, which he's still rocking all these years later. It'll be great to see the Pennsylvania Poker back in the Tigers home whites in 2010. Spring training is only an eternity away!
South American Kidnappers and Major League Baseball
This is sad:
The mother of former major league pitcher Victor Zambrano was kidnapped Sunday, Zambrano's agent Peter Greenberg said late Sunday night by phone. Elizabeth Mendez Zambrano was abducted sometime Sunday morning from her son's farm, about half hour from the central Venezuela city of Maracay, Greenberg said. Venezuela has been haunted in recent years by the kidnapping of rich and famous people. Yorvit Torrealba Jr., the son of Rockies catcher Yorvit Torrealba, and his uncle were kidnapped this summer. They were left unharmed on a road a couple days later. Torrealba has since moved his family to Hollywood, Fla. Former Angels infielder Gus Polidor was killed in April, 1995 while trying to prevent the kidnapping of his infant son via a carjacking. Zambrano played seven years for Tampa Bay, the New York Mets, Toronto and Baltimore. His last game in the big leagues was Sept. 30, 2007.
The attraction is, of course, money, and big league players have certainly been flush with cash. While a player like Zambrano may not have played under a lucrative contract in recent years, there is a perception that anyone who has played in the big leagues has money, and in South America, that means the threat of kidnapping. Throughout Latin America, kidnapping is used to extort money from the rich, or from people perceived to be rich. Here's an older article about the situation, but I think it is indicative of how the crime has perpetrated itself throughout the world, not just Latin America:
Kidnapping is defined as "to hold or carry off, usually for ransom", and encompasses a wide variety of crimes. Economic kidnapping – or the kidnapping business – is where a financial demand is made, which could be either hard cash, or some other financial resource. Political kidnapping, on the other hand, is where political concessions, such as the release of prisoners, changes to the law and policy retreats, are demanded. This distinction may seem straightforward, but in reality cases are rarely this clear cut. There are often grey areas between political and economic kidnapping. For example, the FARC in Colombia is a Marxist-Leninist guerrilla group, but kidnaps for money and is thought to earn hundreds of millions of dollars from it each year. Criminals with political aspirations have also been known to diversify. Definitions are often regarded as the preserve of hair-splitting academics, removed from the reality on the ground. But effective policies and practices for tackling kidnapping are not possible unless they respond to the motivations for the crime and take account of the way kidnappers will react to pressure. For this reason, it is vital that kidnapping cases are defined in terms of the immediate demand rather than any higher order political, religious or other goals a group may have. Economic kidnapping is one of the fastest-growing industries in the world. It is estimated that kidnappers globally take home in the region of $500 million each year in ransom payments: the hostage is a commodity with a price on his head. Reliable statistics are hard to come by, but it is estimated that there are approximately 10,000 kidnappings each year worldwide. The undisputed kidnap capital of the world is Colombia, where the activity has been described as 'a cottage industry'. In 2000, the Colombian National Police recorded 3162 cases. Colombia's problem has not been contained within its own borders. Colombian kidnapping groups often cross over into Venezuela and Ecuador to take hostages, and both countries feature in the top ten. Other hot-spots around the globe include Mexico, where the problem has risen dramatically in the last five years, Brazil, the Philippines and the former Soviet Union. The following table shows the top ten hot-spots in 1999.
How sad is it that, ten years later, this sort of thing is still prevalent, even in Venezuela? Let's hope that Zambrano is able to get his mother back safe and sound.Global Kidnapping hot-spots – 1999 1 Colombia 2 Mexico 3 Brazil 4 Philippines 5 Venezuela 6 Ecuador 7 Former Soviet Union 8 Nigeria 9 India 10 South Africa
As the table above shows, Latin America is an important hub for kidnapping. However, it would be wrong to see the crime as a uniquely Latin American problem. Over the past decade or so, kidnapping has risen in parts of Africa, most notably Nigeria and South Africa. This can largely be traced to the expansion of multi-national companies into these countries following the rich natural resources on offer. Similarly, companies moved into parts of the Former Soviet Union following the collapse of communism at the start of the last decade, and the kidnapping rate has grown there, too.
The Instant Pic: Macy's Screws the Phillies.
via adweek.blogs.com
There's no way they come back now. In a related story, I'm now shopping at Macy's on a regular basis.
Untitled
But you can't win against Sabathia tomorrow and the day after! What says! Yankees MLB Phillies Sports
via Ping.fm
Untitled
Swisher gets the home run! 2010 the year of Twitter on sports! http://bit.ly/288lwX MLB
via Ping.fm
Untitled
2010 the year of Twitter on sports! http://bit.ly/4cozve Will Hamels find his bete noire in these finals, or will he reign just on MLB
via Ping.fm
