My Thoughtful Spot

the postseason

Two days ago, I went to my first postseason game. Red Sox vs. Angels. Normally when I go to Angels Stadium, I support the Halos. But when the Red Sox are in town? I'm a whole new animal. My baseball family, the people I have gotten to know around our season seats during the regular season, had plenty to say about my Mr. Hyde appearance.

The four seats directly to our right are owned by a company, so there are always different people in them. On Wednesday's ALDS Game 1 it was occupied by two guys and their wives. Their only goal, it seemed, was to get completely plastered by consuming only alcoholic beverages during seven innings. (After the seventh inning they don't serve alcohol anymore, so there was no reason for them to stay.) It was very entertaining.

The crowd was completely insane. I've been at Angels stadium when there have been that many people in attendance. A fact that I know thanks to the attendance quizzes they have every game. But this crowd was deafening. They should have issued ear plugs. I'm ashamed to say that the crowd got to me. After the early run scored by the Angels, I was concerned that the relatively weak bats of the Red Sox could not make up just a one run deficit. Thank goodness I'm not a professional ball player!  But my worries were thankfully unnecessary and the Red Sox pulled off a 4-1 win. A two run shot by Jason Bay quieted the crowd down. A bit. There are plenty of places to read a re-cap of the game. I'll refer you to Dawn's post.

Lester pitching with Youkilis covering first in the foreground and the Angels dugout in the background...

Papelbon

speeding up america's game

Most people who know me know that I'm a Red Sox fan. I'm sort of an odd fan in that I can't actually watch most, or even half of the games. It's really a function of what I'm trying to accomplish in my life and that I don't necessarily have three hours a day to spend watching tv. Also, I'm on the west coast. Most of the games that are played by the Sox start around 4pm Pacific time, when I'm still in the thick of things at work or I'm at the gym.

In my less gracious moments, I have a lot of jealousy for people who do get to watch or listen to the games on a nearly daily basis. I love baseball and not seeing it on a regular basis makes me feel like I'm missing the whole season. But then I try to remind myself that we all don't live the same lives and I have made certain choices to do things with mine. This is just one of the many unforseen consequences of that seemingly simple decision. But I try to stay on top of things when I have a chance. I'll surf on over to a Red Sox news site, or Dawn will keep me updated by email.

Apparently, in last night's game at Oakland, hitting coach Dave Magadan was ejected over the enforcement of new rules that have been introduced to try to speed up the game. JD Drew's bat broke and the bat boy did not have his replacement bat at the ready (it wasn't) and, unaware the rules were being enforced, argued and got ejected.

The other rules include limiting how far a batter steps outside of the batter's box, how much time a pitcher can take between pitches, and how long a reliever takes getting from the bullpen to the pitching mound.

As a loyal baseball fan, these rules insult my intelligence. Baseball cannot be turned into a fast game -- it cannot be turned into an "action" sport like basketball or hockey. If it is forced into a certain time frame, you'll get pitching and fielding errors and sloppy baseball. Instead of gaining a few fans with short attention spans, the loyal fans will get ticked off and watch less often. Ugly baseball is frustrating to watch. Everyone knows that some games are just longer; it's part of the strategy. Strategy is key in baseball. Red Sox/Yankees games, for example, are usually around four hours long. But do we really care? No. Each and every one of those games sell out. Every. Time. Why? Because it's one of the greatest, if not the greatest sports rivalry in sports history. And we want to see that drama unfold before our eyes, no matter how long it takes.

bizarro world baseball

As of early this afternoon, the weekend series between my two favorite teams is over. That would, of course, be the Red Sox with the Angels in a distant second. It was supposed to be four games, but one was rained out. I wasn't able to watch all of them, but of the ones that I did see, I noticed a few really odd things that make me think it was Bizarro World...

• Manny ran all the way from left field to center to catch a pop fly. Seriously. He hustled. I'm not sure if I have ever seen that. He ran so fast his cap came flying off exposing his do-rag. (Can I say do-rag?)
• The bats were awake for Wakefield.
• Mirabelli hit a solo home run off of Angels' pitcher Lackey, which is part of the afore mentioned bats for Wake.. This is the guy who weighs twice what his batting average is. Must have been embarrassing for Lackey.
• Lugo actually didn't strike out in a game. (Still waiting for the justification of that off-season acquisition.)
• There were heaters in the Angels dugout. I'll say it again because it bears repeating. Global warming my ass.

The Angels simply don't have a good record against the Red Sox, espeically at Fenway, and especially on Friday 13th. The poor little Angel-pops (Dawn's term) were doing everything they could just to stay warm. Being a California girl who has lived for a time in Boston, I can completely understand how ill-equipped they were to play in 40 degree weather. Hmmm... I wonder if there is a drink called Angel pop? I'm attending a going-away party for a huge Angels fan this Friday... that would be funny.

fantasy update

Since the beginning of the season, I've been in first place in our fantasy baseball league except for about three days. Which is cool. But yesterday, Felix Hernandez from Seattle pitched a shut out, no hitter, complete game against the Red Sox. That, of course, earned a butt-load of points for my fantasy team, but I would have rather DiceK win for the Red Sox. This league seems to be all about pitching; people can have great hitters but if a pitcher does well, like Hernandez, it will blow any home run out of the water if you look at points. Here are the statistical modifiers in our league:

R (1), H (1), 2B (2), 3B (3), HR (4), RBI (1), SB (1), CS (-1), BB (1), K (-1), GIDP (-1), E (-1), IP (1), W (25), CG (15), SHO (10), SV (10), H (-1), ER (-1), HR (-4), BB (-1), K (3), GIDP (2), HLD (5)

One of my friends plays in a league and those settings are very different. Like caught stealing is -0.5 and strike out is -0.5. So, I'm curious. If anyone who comes here plays in a fantasy league or knows much about this stuff... what do you think of these modifiers? Typical? Not? What about your league? Give a newbie a break and help me out here.

yeah, yeah. so they lost

Opening Day should be a national holiday. On Monday, we should have all been at home or in a bar somewhere watching baseball all freaking day. It was also a day of craziness. I was at the gym during the Yankees game; when I left, they were losing 5 to 3 to the D-Rays. The D-Rays? Don't quite understand, but I'll take it. By the time I grabbed a salad for lunch and got home, it was the eighth inning and the Yankees were ahead 9 to 5! What the hell. But... that's what they do, I suppose. I was also pleased to notice that The Traitor gained some weight and no longer has one of the finest asses in the majors. His mug looks more like slimy Giambi's than his svelt former self. heh.

On the Red Sox front, I don't want to hear anything else about it. Everyone at work knows I'm a Sox fan; kind hard to miss with my Red Sox cell phone holder and the little logo pin on my white coat. It sometimes helps me make connnections with patients; like the other day I knew someone who is friends with Abe Alvarez, who pitches for the Paw Sox. Or I meet Boston natives and we talk about how exciting the gyroball is going to be.

So what if Schilling couldn't figure out where the curveball was supposed to go? So what if the bats were eerily silent and reminded me of the disastrous end of last season? So what if Pedroia made a base running error by trying to stretch a single into a double and missed by a lot? A) For some reason, the D-Rays and the Royals always have the Red Sox's number. Even if those two crappy teams can't win any other games all season long, they will almost always win against the Red Sox. Embarrassing, but true. 2) It's only the first game of the whole season. 161 games to go. And D), if Theo wouldn't have let Lorretta go, we wouldn't have to endure newbie moves by Patchouli, Pechanga, or whatever the hell his name is. :-P

the people at yahoo are killing me

Every time I get to the main page to log into the fantasy baseball page at Yahoo, I am forced to look at his picture. I can't speak his name. Don't need to, really. He's dead to me. And yet, every time I check on the draft, I have to stare at his sell-out, traitor, clean-shaven mug. Out of the hundreds of baseball players faces to put on their banner, they had to pick that one. :-P

starting line up

We just finished the draft for our fantasy baseball league's starting line up! So here are my picks:

• C Mike Piazza (Oak)
• 1B Derek Lee (ChC)
• 2B Josh Barfield (Cle)
• 3B Garrett Atkins (Col)
• SS Jose Reyes (NYM)
• LF Carl Crawford (TB)
• CF Juan Pierre (LAD)
• RF Magglio Ordonez (Det)
• SP Felix Hernandez (Sea)
• SP Ben Sheets (Mil)
• SP Brett Myers (Phi)
• SP Chris Young (SD)
• RP Brenden Donnelly (Bos)
• Closer BJ Ryan (TB)

Most of the players are from the National League, which I don't really watch that much. So I admittedly don't know about them. All the players I loved and who were half-way decent (Red Sox or Angels) were not available, so I just went with Yahoo's fantasy expert guys' recommendations. I'm sure over the season I will learn a lot about not only these players, but about a bunch more also. Even if it's just looking at daily statistics or reading some headlines. The guy in the picture is one of my starting pitchers, Ben Sheets. Dawn found this photo for me (AP Photo/Morry Gash), right after I selected him to be on my team. It's almost as if he were meant to be mine! (For anyone who doesn't know, I think The SImpsons is the greatest tv show in the history of tv.) ;-)

Next step is to pick out three guys to fill our bench positions. Oh, hurry up and finish, March!

it's coming...

I know it's not even March yet and I still have to endure all that March Madness basketball crap, but I can feel baseball coming. Yesterday I signed up my first even fantasy sports team; I'm calling them the OC Nightingales. Now that it's a done deal, I just pray that I'll catch on quickly to something that has been going on for years. I tried to go over the rules, but it's pretty complicated. And how do I switch my mindset from a team like the Red Sox and how they all support each other to individual players? Take Mirabelli, for example. I don't care that he weighs more than his batting average. I know that the Red Sox, namely Tim Wakefield, need him on the team. So the team tries to absorb his crap at bats.

But now I have to look at fielding and averages all together per player. I was scanning a few charts and it looks like a lot of Yankees are good at both. I'm going to try really hard to not have any damn Yankees on my team, but I don't know how that will all work out...

Plus Dawn got to listen to the first Red Sox spring training game tonight on the radio, since she's in Florida. The game ended after 10 innings tied at 4-4 (thaks a lot Tavarez). It was on the radio. Baseball is being played again. And sooner than I realize, we'll all get to watch. :-)

ready for baseball

I went to a Superbowl Party and was done with football by half-time. The hostess is from Chicago and there was a prize for whoever dressed up as someone from the Superfans, a-la Chris Farley. So I found a grass skirt and a coconut bra at the House of Tiki only a few minutes from our apartment. She and I had our own half time show, honoring a certain Mike Ditka. See the video...

Even though I had a heart attack, some Polish sausage lodged in my pericardium, and several toasts to DAAAAAHHHHH BEARZZZZZZ... They still lost. There was a pool based on the final score for each quarter, and Daniel won the big prize at the end.. a little over $100. We also met some pretty cool British people and this was their first exposure to American football. But really what was more intriguing was the food. The best comment of the whole party was in reference to Cheese Wiz by one of the Brits, who had never experienced the miracle of Cheese Wiz. "Cheese in a can. God bless America." Indeed. The best commercial was the first one I saw. I think it was for Bud Light. There were two guys at a barbeque party and there was only one beer left in the cooler. So they decided to do Rock, Paper, Scissors to determine who got the beer. Okay... on the count of three. 1... 2... 3... one of the guys threw a rock at the other guys head, who fell over. He gets the beer. Hilarious.

To get to April, I only have to endure March Madness. March has 31 days in it. I am sooooo ready for baseball and our new kick-ass seats.

P.S. There are photos of our halftime show. I am currently trying to purchase the rights.

i guess that's it

The 2006 season of baseball ended last Friday night, with the St. Louis Cardinals taking the championship title over the Detroit Tigers four games to one. Being a baseball fan, I of course watched the series. "I live for this" as the commercial says. But I was very disappointed in the quality of baseball that was played during the World Series. There were so many errors committed by both teams... fielding errors by both the infield and the outfield, base running errors, and general WTF plays. Seriously, is that the best Major League Baseball had to offer us this year? They say baseball in October is unpredictable, and this October certainly proved it.

The other thing that annoyed me was that the two players who probably had the most influence in the Cardinal capturing the title are former Angels players Eckstein and Weaver. I've always loved David Eckstein and I never understood why the Angels traded the current MVP. I'm sure they're wondering why they traded him now, too. Jeff Weaver pitched for the Angels this season... poorly. Yet, as soon as he landed in St. Louis, he all of the sudden knew how to pitch. And not just pitch ok, but pitch an amazing 8 inning game to help give St. Louis the edge in that last game. The last time he pitched in Anaheim, he was boo'd off the field! I was there! I boo'd him, too!

So now the quiet baseball winter begins, as Dawn calls it. Now all we get are little tidbits of information on who is thinking about being traded to whom and what nonsense Manny is up to. But I don't feel like I'm ready for winter. We're supposed to "fatten up" on baseball during the summer and get the rest of your fill during October so that we can survive the famine of winter. But this year's harvest has been very poor; and we're a lot thinner than we should be at the beginning of winter. By the time April '07 rolls around, I suspect the winter will have picked off the weak ones (aka, the bandwagoners) and only the loyal, scrawny fans will be left. Okay, time to hunker down...