A Tale of Two Ballplayers

Barry Bonds is an amazing athlete. He does not have a reputation for blowing up and needing to be physically restrained. He does have the reputation for being a bit aloof, but he has not attacked anyone who alleges that he did what just about every ballplayer in the league has been doing (and keep in mind that steroids are going to have more benefit to pitchers than to hitters anyway). The media dumps on him every chance they get. The commissioner acts the complete ass when Bonds breaks a record. The Giants, a team that has been utterly dull the last few years, with the exception of Bonds, fires him. Fires him. The same year he broke the all-time home run record.

Now we have Milton Bradley. Milton Bradley has a deserved reputation for blowing up at the slightest provocation. He was caught being a jerk to an ump and made a big deal of it with the ump who reported him. The ump may or may not have said something unprofessional. Milton Bradley has a tantrum and attacks the umpire and, in being subdued, injures himself. He claims that if his self-inflicted injuries make him miss the season, he is going to "take action" against the umpire. MLB suspends the umpire. AOL, in its reporting, has a survey asking if the league "did enough". Not whether or not it should have done anything. Not whether or not it should have taken action against Bradley.

I don't get it.

Giants and Fortyniners... Bah! Humbug!

The only reason to watch the Giants for the last two years has been Barry Bonds. That's it. Otherwise, they have been a crappy team, and show no signs of improving. Unlike the A's, they do not have a good track record of finding good young talent on the cheap.

I have been one of the few dual loyalty fans of both the A's and the Giants for years. Certainly the Giants have the better ballpark (which makes crossing the Bay Bridge a hassle whenever they have evening games). When they cut loose the only reason to see the team a big part of me hopes they pick up, pack up their congestion-causing ballpark, and go to San Jose.

Especially if they take the 49ers with them.

It will be great. The transbay rivalry will become the cross-slough rivalry. Whoo-hooo! Go Fremont!

Who cares? If I have to take up the cause of an East Coast team then I will simply abandon baseball. Soccer (as played by Europeans and Latin Americans) is a better game anyway.

The Newspaper is Confused on Angelology

Today I read the following headline in the Vallejo Times Herald:

"A's offense comes to life, batters Angels' Colon"

I dunno about you, but I want the A's offense to be playing baseball, not performing metaphysically impossible violence on angelic beings.

Tee hee hee. I have to feel for Bartolo Colon. At least the only weirdness with Keilholtz was the spelling. The headline writers should be more mature...and yet...who could resist?

Anyway, we went to an A's game last week, against Texas, and it was a good game, played under clear blue skies and 80 degree weather. And the A's won, which is always a bonus.

Baseball Predictions

There seem to be a whole lot of predictions for the baseball season already. I don't quite get it, but since so many others are in the game, here are mine:

The Giants will play about half of their games at home and half away. The A's, aping the Giants once again, will do the same.

Of course the Cubs will also do this, which will raise hopes, once again, for the poor Cubs fans (one real prediction I will make: the Cubs will not make it to the World Series). Of course snide, hardened veteran sports writers will point out that the Yankees AND the Mets will follow a similar pattern.

Of course as we get into September, the numbers start taking on much more meaning, and we will see four teams in each league playing baseball in October. Ultimately, we will end up with a National League victor and an American League victor. You might have another suggestion, but this is how it has been for years.

And the World Series winner will definitely be one of the following two teams: the American League champs or the National League champs.

Now, if the A's have all of their players go on the disabled list, they will not have a very good season.

And that is how the 2007 baseball season is going to pan out.

Play Ball!

On Baseball

When I started this blog one of the things that I had planned on giving significant time to was the musical/formal aspects to the game of baseball. It intrigues me, because it is one of the few sports that happens entirely in its own time. The clock is simply to measure, not to determine. When the game is won, it is over, whether that is the top of the ninth or the bottom. And so on.

However, due to distractions (even much earlier than YouTube), I have written very little about baseball, and this goes back to when I could go to just about any A's game and sit in very good seats for free. Now that I no longer have my ticket connection, and the A's are looking to move to Fremont, I currently have and will continue to have less and less opportunities to watch the game. Sure, there is San Francisco, a better ballpark, National League, great location, etc., but that is not cheap, and there are only so many times you can tolerate standing in the freebie cage. It is fun to stand in the freebie cage (I did it for the opening day of the first season at the park), but after awhile, you want a ticket, a seat, an overpriced pint of beer, and a bag of peanuts (wasn't that a line from that Persian poet?).

However, I still like the game, and would like to point you to this excellent piece on the steroid nonsense. John is absolutely correct in his portrayal of journalists, by the way.