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Archive for the ‘Baseball’ Category

My Irrational League hitters came alive in September, slamming homer after homer.

Unfortunately, my pitching stunk worse than month-old lobster. Collapses by Chris Carpenter and Mat Latos meant that Jason Marquis was my ace for the last six weeks – and yes, that’s as bad as it sounds. Not only did I fall out of the money after climbing back into it in August, I finished in fifth.

My final stats:

.269 batting average (3rd, down from 2nd in August)
232 HR (1st up from 6th)
945 RBI (2nd, two RBI out of first)
131 SB (5th, down from 4th)
4.18 ERA (10th down from 6th)
1.28 WHIP (4th down from 3rd)
78 wins (9th down from 7th)
56 saves (6th up from 7th)

What went wrong?

I estimated my final hitting stats would come out to something like .280, 250 HR, 1015 RBI, and 180 SB – all overestimates, but this was a pitching year. An average of .275 won the category, and I essentially did as well as could be expected in HRs and RBIs. I lost 50 SB to Matt Kemp’s (19 SB, 15 CS) and David Wright’s (19 SB, 11 CS) inefficiency and Lasting Milledge’s drop in speed (5 SB, 3 CS). I had predicted those three to rack up 75 SB instead of 43. Oh, yes, and then there was Nate McClouth, who had a whole season of went wrong.

My pitching failed at the start of the year as Jason Marquis and Kyle Lohse both stunk up the joint before going on the injured reserve list. Trevor Hoffman just stunk. Nobody picked up the slack after August, when Latos and Carpenter pitched like gods. In September, they pitched like dogs.

See you next year, Irrational League. It’s hockey season!

Thunderdome was an underground club in Montreal during the late ’80s and early ’90s. It was two floors connected by a huge spiral staircase in a cage. It had theme nights. It was one of a kind.

One of my most popular – and earliest – blog posts mentioned Thunderdome.

Well, the club is going to live again for a night.

A Sphinx/Thunderdome revival will take place Saturday, August 28 at Club La Boom – the former premises of Thunderdome at 1254 Stanley.

I doubt the Thundedome crowd will rip out the chic, cookie-cutter look of La Boom and replace it with the steel poles, murals, and Flintstones car we all loved, but the music will certainly revert to ’80s New Wave and Alternative. Andre Legatos, Will Chase, and others will spin tunes.

Tickets are on sale in advance for $12 a head. Yeah, that’s $12 more than the ‘Dome used to charge, but we all have jobs now. (Well, most of us do.) Tickets at the door will cost $20.

Bonus baseball:

My fantasy team mired in doldrums. After leading the league in homers earlier in the year, my team has suffered a massive power outage. With some luck, my pick-up of Rick Ankiel will with that. Last month, I said my team will fall no lower than third in steals. I was wrong.

My pitching is doing well but has no wins to show for it. I may move up in saves if Drew Storen can wrest the closer job in Washington from his competitors, and if Aaron Heilman can grab that role (again) in Arizona.

.271 batting average (2nd in a group of three somewhat ahead of the others)
143 HR (tied 6th but only three homers out of fourth)
634 RBI (2nd)
102 SB (4th)
4.00 ERA (6th)
1.28 WHIP (3rd)
51 wins (tied 7th)
32 saves (7th and four saves out of fifth)

My team has dropped from second place to fifth, but I’m only five points out of second.

I wrote an article on baseball uniforms yesterday and to do that, I studied the official uniform rules of Major League Baseball, Little League, and another youth baseball organization called USSSA Baseball.

Little League bases its rules on the rules of Major League Baseball. As a result, both groups require in their Rules 1.11 that “all players on a team shall wear uniforms identical in color, trim and style, and all players uniforms shall include minimal six-inch numbers on their backs.” Little League omits the number size and requires an official Little League patch on the left arm or, in sleeveless uniforms, on the left breast.

Both forbid ragged, frayed, or slit sleeves, and detail that sleeve length may vary between team members but that each player must sport two sleeves of the same length. If a player wears an undershirt visible beneath his uniform top, it needs to be a solid color and all teammates must wear the same color. No player may wear a white, long-sleeved undershirt although any other color is allowed. No part of a uniform can resemble a baseball.

Aside from some rules on jewelry, shoes, and pitchers not distracting batters, that’s about it. Notice anything missing?

That’s right: pants. And caps. There is nothing in the rules that requires a team to wear pants. While there is a rule that says all members of a team must wear identical uniforms, an entire team can go without pants and remain within the rules. The same goes for caps. If the entire team goes hatless or all wear berets, it’s within official uniform rules.

This explains the monstrous shorts the White Sox wore for three games in 1976. Note also in the photo the shirts, which were uniformly worn untucked.

Now, don’t try this in USSSA leagues. The USSSA specifically mandates that players wear pants and caps. Spoilsports.

I skipped a June update because I had little to relate. The situation was essentially the same as May. This month, though, there is movement afoot!

In June I picked up Drew Storen in the hope that Matt Capps’s rough patch would lead him to lose his closer job, but that never happened. Storen has provided a month of good stats in relief but no saves.

At the time, I had to decide between him and Aaron Heilman, who seemed to be a possibility for saves In Arizona. Since then, Heilman has indeed become the closer there. I chose wrong. Somehow, though, Heilman went unselected in our monthly update draft and I was able to snag him at the second-to-last position. That’s right, I’ve climbed to second place. Here’s how it breaks down:

.268 batting average (3rd and in a huge clump of five vying for second place)
106 HR (4th)
469 RBI (2nd)
81 SB (2nd and will fall no lower than 3rd)
4.07 ERA (6th up from 10th)
1.26 WHIP (2nd up from 7th)
40 wins (6th)
20 saves (tied 8th)

It’s a pitching year. Only one team has a batting average over .270. With my crappy pitchers on the disabled list, my team has a WHIP of 1.16 and an ERA of 3.21 over the last 28 days.

Heilman alone will get me 2.5 additional points. I’m in second, 14 points behind the runaway leader and five points up on the third-place team.

Bonus real baseball:

Child Three has one of the nicest line-drive swings in the league. Incredibly, he’s only made four outs at the plate so far this season and only two of those were strikeouts. He’s speedy, he fields adequately, and he has no arm. As Uncle Jeff observed, he’s like his dad.

My Irrational League team spent most of April solidly in seventh place but during the month’s last week tremendously climbed into a tie for third. My hitting couldn’t be better. My pitching could only barely be worse. This is the first week my team ERA has started under 6.00.

I dropped Ben Sheets, who is struggling and won’t be an asset even if ever traded to the National League, with Carlos Silva, who may continue his fluke run or may revert but in any case can fill in for the injured Jason Marquis.

No one picked up Livan Hernandez. Unbelievers!

How I stand:

.272 batting average (3rd)
49 HR (1st)
177 RBI (2nd)
30 SB (tied for 2nd)
5.70 ERA (10th)
1.37 WHIP (7th)
12 wins (tied 8th)
6 saves (6th)

All that adds up to 48 points, good for a third-place tie and only half a point out of a second-place tie. It’s 20 points behind the current leader, however.

Bonus foreboding:

I still have two posts I want to write, one a summary of the year’s Atom B hockey with plenty of photos and the other a summary of how my Department of Journalism has toyed with me.

The Irrational League held its annual April fantasy-baseball draft. I think I did OK, although my starting pitching makes me queasy. I was expecting Hiroki Kuroda to be on the table a few rounds in, but he was snapped up sooner than I had anticipated, probably because we held our draft after his first start, a masterpiece. I took some risks – rather, I took what most people would consider risks. I, however, am confident that Adam Laroche will thrive in Arizona’s home-run environment. Jay Bruce will bounce back. He has too much talent for last year and the first week of this year to be the norm. Mat Latos has a live arm in a forgiving ballpark. I have two good starting catchers. Every hitter brings something to the table, much like my team last year. In fact, I think I have more than last year.

My hitters and projections:

C: Yadier Molina: .280, 5 HR, 55 RBI, 5 SB
C: Miguel Olivo: .260, 15 HR, 50 RBI, 5 SB
1B: Adam LaRoche: .260, 25 HR, 90 RBI
2B: Kelly Johnson: .275, 15 HR, 65 RBI, 10 SB
SS: Ryan Theriot: .280, 5 HR, 55 RBI, 20 SB
3B: David Wright: .305, 20 HR, 80 RBI, 25 SB
CI: Adam Kennedy: .280, 10 HR, 55 RBI, 15 SB
MI: Freddy Sanchez: .290, 10 HR, 45 RBI, 5 SB
OF: Matt Holliday: .300, 25 HR, 85 RBI, 10 SB
OF: Matt Kemp: .290, 20 HR, 80 RBI, 30 SB
OF: Jay Bruce: .290, 35 HR, 95 RBI, 10 SB
OF: Nate McClouth: .265, 20 HR, 75 RBI, 20 SB
OF: Ryan Ludwick: .270, 25 HR, 80 RBI, 5 SB
UT: Melvin Mora: .280, 5 HR, 40 RBI, 5 SB
UT: Lastings Milledge: .275, 10 HR, 60 RBI, 20 SB

On my bench, I have Jeff Baker to sub until Freddy Sanchez comes back from an injury. Greg Zaun also has a seat there.

I figure my final hitting stats will come out to something like .280, 250 HR, 1015 RBI, and 180 SB. It’s more or less what I expected last year, with an extra 40 SB tacked on for the loss of 20 RBI. I guessed second or third in batting average and homers, first in RBI, and third or fourth in stolen bases. I think my first three categories hold, but if my team gets 180 stolen bases, I will win that outright – let’s conservatively predict a second-place finish there. That’s 36 points in hitting.

Those 36 points better be enough to buoy my pitching.

SP: Chris Carpenter: 14 W, 3.40 ERA, 1.15 WHIP
SP: Ted Lilly: 11 W, 3.75 ERA, 1.20 WHIP
SP: Mat Latos: 10 W, 3.60 ERA; 1.20 WHIP
SP: Kevin Correia: 11 W, 4.15 ERA, 1.30 WHIP
P: Jason Marquis: 11 W, 4.05 ERA, 1.30 WHIP
P: Kyle Lohse: 12 W, 4.25 ERA, 1.30 WHIP
RP: Trevor Hoffman: 30 Sv, 2 W, 3.15 ERA, 1.15 WHIP
RP: Billy Wagner: 25 Sv, 2 W, 3.10 ERA, 1.20 WHIP
RP: Latroy Hawkins: 3 Sv, 3 W, 3.50 ERA, 1.20 WHIP
RP: Danys Baez: 4 Sv, 3 W, 3.40 ERA, 1.20 WHIP

I do not like three of my six starters, who are consistently league average. They have no upside. Fortunately, starting pitching is unpredictable and the most available commodity. Also, I have Pedro Martinez and Ben Sheets on my reserve list….

I figure I’ll get roughly 60 saves (good for fifth), 80 wins (good for fifth), but come in strong with an ERA of 3.80 (third) and a WHIP of 1.25 (first). That’s 30 points to total, with the hitting, 66 points – more than enough for the 60 points usually needed to win.

Let’s see how this all shakes out. I know I’ll be shaking when Lohse, Correia, and Marquis toe the rubber.

This was weird. Today, we had to submit our list of four keepers for the 2010 version of the Irrational League.

I kept reaching the same conclusion: I have to drop two guys that have been mainstays of my team for years. Aging sucks. You hurt, you get slower, and you can’t quite reach places you used to. I feel that myself, too.

I’m keeping:

Matt “Summer” Kemp OF LA
David “Two Wrongs Don’t Make a” Wright 3B NY
Matt “Roman” Holliday OF STL
Chris “Karen” Carpenter SP STL

Goodbye, Lance (Berkman). So long, Carlos (Beltran). Please empty your desks and have security escort you to the front door.

The strange thing is that this completes an absolute turnover in my keepers. A year ago, only Kemp was on my team, and that was only his second year with me. I acquired the other three through last year’s draft and a trade (Ryan Zimmerman for Wright).

September was slow. I had little work, lots of sleep at unnatural times, and little motivation to write.

I’m back, baby.

I’m not sure if it’s coincidence or cause, but at the same time jobs are falling out of the sky. I nearly pulled an all-nighter Tuesday night to get my work done.

It started with computer-consulting work for a new client, converting his (very) small office from Windows XP to Macs. That’s technically not work I’ve ever done before, but I carried it out smoothly, only losing iTunes playlists and the attachments from the curs-ed Outlook to Mail.

That’s a huge pain, that Outlook. In order to overcome Microsoft’s proprietary e-mail-storage format, you have to first use Thunderbird in Windows to import te Outlook mailboxes, then export, transfer those exported files to the Mac, and import in Mail. Wheee.

My client loved his Mac so much after one day with it that he bought another for his wife.

A second job I caught involves research for a publisher. This publisher, as publisher s are wont to do, published a self-help book along with a marketing brochure. The book is fine, but the consumer affairs division of a first-world country is suing the publisher because whoever write the brochure was careless with paraphrasing and accuracy. That’s fun work, trying to rationalize with research the claims of the brochure.

There’s more potential work on the horizon – Web copywriting for a tech product. We’ll see if that pans out.

The best of all news is that I hung on to win my second consecutive Irrational League title. It was close, and with the benched pitching staff I had, I wasn’t going to hang on much longer. I won by half a point with a total of 57.5.

.286 batting average (1st)
188 HR (9th thanks to off years by all my sluggers)
974 RBI (2nd)
137 SB (4th)
4.12 ERA (6th)
1.30 WHIP (4th)
96 wins (1st)
74 saves (tied for 3rd)

My preseason estimates can be seen here. I topped my expected batting average but fell short by 75 home runs. On a team with Beltran, Ludwick, Berkman, and Zimmerman/Wright, Matt Kemp lead the team in home runs with 26. That says it all.

My starters’ health did not hold up, yet I finished first in wins, which surprises me. I did trade a closer (Chad Qualls) for a starter (Javy Vazquez, who nabbed 12 wins for me) early on, which is part of that. Chris Coghlan was a nice mid-season pick-up and the Matt Holiday gamble paid off handsomely.

So that’s me at this time. Happy Thanksgiving.

August has not been kind. Oh, heck. It’s September already, isn’t it?

Maybe I pushed myself too hard in July, but August was a month of fatigue, possible a relapse of my mono. As if taking a clue from their general manager, my Angels with Crystal Balls have also been lagging, so much so that the team now sits in a tie for first place and occasionally dips to second.

As of this morning:

.289 batting average (1st by .008)
160 HR (10th but only 5 HR out of eighth)
819 RBI (2nd by 3 RBI)
116 SB (5th, 4 SB out of third)
4.14 ERA (6th)
1.29 WHIP (3rd)
81 wins (2nd, 1 win out of first)
65 saves (2nd and falling)

The league champion will be decided by whether or not the team I’m battling with can keep its batting average above the three teams on its heels.

Bonus van story for Naila:

I went to an ELAN schmoozer a week and a half ago, held at the St. Sulpice on St. Denis. I parked on de Maisonneuve (that’s not important, but it helps place the story for locals) and walked down to my van at 9:00 p.m.

As I started my engine, a red Volkswagen Jetta parallel-parked into the empty spot in front of me. He stopped and I turned on my lights. The passenger in the rear left seat opened his door but then shut it again. I took that as a cue that he say me and I pulled out to go on my merry way.

My merriment was interrupted by a thump. As I passed the Jetta, that rear passenger opened his door right into the side of the van, denting everything from my front door handle back to the rear panel. I had a series of nice red racing stripes, too. The Jetta door was twisted in a way that looked like its edge had melted.

The insurance companies properly deemed the other car to be 100% at fault. The poor driver was just a kid from the boonies, maybe 18, maybe with his first car. I bet the kid in the back seat never opens his door into traffic again, though.

The van’s in the garage, but we have a loaner car.

Monday, I came home early from our three-day multi-family camping trip (briefly: heat, beach, heat, food, and heat at the Upper Canada Migratory Bird Sanctuary) to coach our minor baseball A’s in the extra innings of a tie game called on account of darkness Thursday. The other team could not field enough players and had to forfeit, putting us in the final losers’ bracket game against a team that beat us 8-5 previously.

We had a bit of infield practice instead of our game in anticipation of yesterday’s losers’ final.

Wow, did it pay off. Our team played the best defensive game of baseball I’ve seen and that includes the B-level tournament select members participated in a few weeks ago. Our pitchers threw strikes. Our two pitchers got through the six innings in 80 pitches.

Our shortstop, who had never played baseball before mid-summer, played a flawless game. Our third baseman likewise. Our outfielders got the ball back to the infield quickly. I don’t want to dwell on errors, but on defense we made only two: a misguided throw home instead of to the cutoff man that allowed a runner to advance to third and a ground ball that our second baseman should have grabbed. Every other ball in play was either a solid hit or, more often, turned into an out. It was a spectacular game to watch.

We need to work on our hitting, though. We won only 2-1. Part of that was poor baserunning. We handed over three crucial outs on the basepaths. One was our first batter of the game, who walked and took a step off first base to be tagged by the first baseman. I’ve seen better sportsmanship, but not better gamesmanship. Another out was a foolish attempt to steal third on the runner’s own initiative, and another was a baserunner who took off for third, stopped, and returned to second as the runner from first slid in to that base. Those outs may have cost us runs; regardless, we still need better hitting.

We play in the championship Saturday and we’ll need to win twice to be champions. We can do it.

If you want to see photos of our boys, go to this page and scroll through. That’s Child Three with the wide stance at the plate. Here he is catching. In this one, you can see me with mono coaching third base and scoring.