Posts belonging to Category Teams

One of my favorite things about baseball is the array of characters that have played the game over time.  In a sport where refined technique is as valued as raw athleticism, there is much more opportunity for people outside of the typical “jock” to excel.  Anyone with an oversized pituitary gland can dunk a basketball or run and make a leaping catch, but it takes more than just physical skills to understand the mechanics of effectively swinging a bat at something moving so fast you can hardly see it.  And while all sports require some amount of strategy, baseball is much more of a thinking man’s game due to its endless situational possibilities and therefore many more intellectual athletes seem to be drawn to it as opposed to other sports.  Finally, baseball is inherently much more of an individual game than any other team sport.  When a batter strikes out he cannot blame his teammates and when a team completes a perfect game it is only the pitcher who gets recorded credit for the statistic.  These nuances, along with the overly-conservative rigidity of MLB, make baseball the perfect sport for unique personas to stand out, and no character has ever shined brighter than baseball’s one and only Spaceman, Bill Lee.

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The 2010 Major League Baseball trade deadline has come and gone and once again ended with GMs shouting out deals back and forth as frenetically as Wall Street floor traders. The two biggest names dealt before today’s deadline were pitchers Cliff Lee and Roy Oswalt. Lee has turned into quite the vagabond as of late, heading from Cleveland to Philly to Seattle and finally to the Texas Rangers all within the last two seasons. Seattle got switch hitting first baseman Justin Smoak and three minor league prospects out of the deal.

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Even though none of these videos are actually commercials, they are just as entertaining thanks to the hilarious antics and personality of San Francisco Giants’ closer, Brian Wilson.  If you know nothing about the flame-throwing right-hander, there is a lot to take in.  Wilson dresses like a rock star, acts like a rock star, is continually sarcastic, is a self-proclaimed genius, has the best mohawk in baseball, and is rarely serious.  Just like when he takes the mound, Wilson wants to be the center of attention at all times: he is incredibly entertaining with his electric fastball, devastating slider and post game celebration.  Additionally, it’s quite possible that he was put on this planet for the sake of providing the most comical sound bites.

On Wednesday, Major League Baseball fined Wilson $1,000 for wearing the loud, orange cleats that he first displayed in the All-Star Game.  They stated that his cleats could only be 50% orange, as opposed to the 100% that he was currently sporting.  How did he respond?  Wilson simply used a sharpie to fill in some of the areas of his spikes to make them more presentable.  Even though some of these videos are rather lengthy(some checking in at around 10 minutes), they are worth every second.  Here is a combination of his self-shot videos on YouTube that have been dubbed “Life of Brian”, and his interviews with Chris Rose on The Cheap Seats:

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How you doin Sombrero Nation?  I know I have not posted in a while and I apologize for that.  I have been busy handling my coaching duties for the Farmington Cardinals, your 2010 FABC representative Host team in the 2010 Connie Mack World Series.  I say that with pride.  The Cardinals were the winner of the local city league (state) tournament.  Winner of this tourney gets an automatic bid in the annual Connie Mack World Series tournament.

Early in the year I began writing pieces about my city’s spectacular baseball field, Ricketts Park.  As the start of August runs near, the FABC Connie Mack League embarks on a journey.  This journey leads to the holy grail of Amateur baseball, the one and only Ricketts Park.  As the local teams of the Farmington league do battle, every last one of them has one common one thought in their brain; “If we win this thing, I get to be in the Connie Mack World Series!”  I write this piece with a special piece of my heart, for I grew up and still reside in Farmington, NM.  I grew up watching first round draft picks play on the field that I hoped to one day play on myself.  As a 17 year old I lost in the championship round after throwing a complete game 1 hitter (that can still be argued today as a no-hitter) and lost.  As an 18 year old, I was beat on Championship Night by Mike Dunn, who just recently got called back to the show by the Braves.  Last year he even won a ring with the Yankees.  Not a bad guy to lose to at 18 years old.  Then, last year, fellow writer Barfy and I lost on championship night; as coaches.  I was actually picked up my 18 year old summer by Barfy’s team, the Sky Sox.  But I digress.  There will be time for a trip down memory lane later.

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Monday evening, fans at Ricketts Park saw the final two rounds of the Farmington Connie Mack City Tournament, a night closing out the most grueling and exciting week of New Mexican baseball each year (in this writer’s opinion).  Still left on the final evening were the Strike Zone Cardinals of Farmington, the Four Corners Thunder of Durango, CO, and Naataanii, an academy located in Gallup, NM.  These were the three teams most local baseball fans including myself anticipated being alive on the final night of the tournament.

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