Articles from June 2010

As even the most casual of baseball fans know by now, Armando Galarraga retired 26 consecutive batters to open a game against the Indians on Wednesday, but failed to complete a perfect game as first-base umpire Jim Joyce incorrectly ruled that Cleveland’s Jason Donald beat out an infield single with two outs in the ninth. In the wake of such a stunning event in baseball, which made headlines well beyond the Sports section, there is bound to be overreaction, and there has certainly been no shortage of that in the 24 hours following the umpiring debacle.

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As many of you may know, a colossus of baseball has retired recently.  It was a first for me.  It was the first time in my life that I had witnessed the retirement of not only my all-time favorite baseball player, but my boyhood idol.  Griffey did more for me than most fans.  He not only seduced me with his effortless swing, like he did millions of others, he taught me how to play baseball.  He was a perfect combination of natural born talent, charisma, effort (I’m talking to you Hanley), and youthful vigor, all rolled into the one and only live action Roy Hobbs action figure.  His game had the grace of an antelope fused with the spirit of a 10 year old kid.  If Michelangelo were to paint the roof in the House That Ruth Built, Ken Griffey Jr. highlight reel catches and home runs would fill it from corner to corner.

If Bo knew, The Kid did.  Anybody out there remember how sad they were when Griffey’s season was ruined by having to receive a plate and multiple screws to repair a broken wrist after making a diving/jumping combo catch into the wall?  Complete disregard for his body, all in the name of wanting to make the coolest play a 14 year old could think of.  As a young, fellow south-paw, and eerily similar named kid who loved baseball, I used to mimic his every move between on the diamond.  Shit, at one point I actually learned how to do the Griffey homer hand shake during the ’93 season.  I rocked the backwards hat.  Left-handed swing? check.  And you can bet the barn that I smiled as much, if not more than he did too.  Oh, and that smile. That infectious smile.  Anytime you saw a Griffey highlight you saw that picture perfect smile that was a leftover from his devilish deeds of thievery in the outfield.  This smile is how you knew he was still just a little kid leaving a dream.  He was fortunate enough to have gifts, so gifts are what he gave back.

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June 3, 2010

June 1^st is a big date in the Fantasy Baseball World.  As TMR alluded to in his article on ESPN.com earlier, it marks the opening of trade season.  It is also about the time that you begin to have substantial enough data sets to start forming a solid opinion as to what kind of fantasy impact a player might have for your team.  It is around this time that I really like to go find one or two guys for my team to replace that early season bust.  On that note here are three guys who are available and worth more than just a look in most leagues and definitely in deeper or NL/AL only leagues.

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June 2, 2010

I recently told Arlo that I would attempt to make more frequent Sombrero posts, but this weekend was a busy one for me.  I was in Denver attending the Calcote/Lucero bachelor party.  Jason Calcote is a lifelong friend of mine and was kind enough to invite me to be one of the groomsmen in his upcoming wedding.  Garret Lucero is another friend of mine, and the two decided to have a combined party up in Denver so that we could catch part of the Dodgers/Rox series.  It was a fun weekend.  I’m going to leave it at that.

A lot of baseball stuff happened over the weekend, though, so I’m going to attempt to condense it all into a reasonably brief post.  Probably the sweetest thing for New Mexican baseball that took place over the holiday weekend was UNM’s at-large bid into a regional.  The selection, which took place early Monday morning, was the program’s first selection in almost half a century.  They open up against Stanford as a three-seed in the Fullerton regional.  I truly believe they have an honest to God shot at making it into the round of 16.  With wins against Texas, TCU, and a couple other schools that have spent time in the top-25, this group appears to have all the requisite preparation for games of this magnitude.

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June 1, 2010

“With the one hundred fourth pick of the 2010 Denslow Cup Draft, the Capital City Corporate Towls select Ubaldo Jimenez, Starting Pitcher, Colorado Rockies.” These words (which would have been uttered by Denslow Cup commissioner Robbie Unsell had we done an in-person draft but were instead simply printed on a screen) have launched my Capital City Corporate Towls into the world of fantasy baseball relevance for the first time since the team’s championship run back in 2007.  And why not?  Jimenez this year has been the best pitcher in baseball and after two months, has to be the favorite to win the NL Cy Young in a league that includes Roy Halladay and Tim Lincecum, whom Ubaldo just outdueled in his latest gem. The Rockies are 10-1 when Ubaldo takes the hill and 17-23 when he doesn’t, and they’ll count on him to continue his dominant season atop their rotation if they’re to have any hope of making the playoffs.  His ten wins, 0.90 WHIP and microscopic 0.78 ERA all lead the Majors by a comfortable margin. Before moving on, it is important to compare these numbers to the historical pitching performance of the Rockies, a franchise whose struggles from the mound are well-documented, particularly in the pre-humidor era of hitter-friendly Coors Field.  A few statistics jump out immediately:

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