Articles from August 2010

On Thursday night, the visiting Los Angeles Dodgers surrendered a 5-run lead against the Philadelphia Phillies, giving up 3 runs in both the 8^th and 9^th innings and ultimately losing 10-9.  Although many of the Dodgers’ players lent a helping hand in making the late-inning collapse exceedingly memorable, the brunt of my focus is on Ronald Belisario’s mental error- a blunder so rare that it baffled every umpire on the field, as well as the manager of both teams.

With nobody out in the bottom of 8^th inning, Belisario opted to do a 3^rd-to-1^st pickoff move, hoping to catch an anxious Jayson Werth with too large a lead.  There was just one slight problem, there was no a runner on 3^rd base.  The only guy on base was Werth…and he was on 1^st.  That’s right, this means that Belisario made a move to an unoccupied base(3^rd) in an attempt to deceive Werth.  BALK.  However, this was no ordinary balk, it was arguably one of the most bone-headed and unthinkable balk in baseball history; it should have counted for a run, not just a single base.  If we refer to a players’ mental errors as “brain farts,” then Belisario’s gaffe should be recognized as “brain explosive-diarrhea.” Here’s why:

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As the end of the 2010 Major League Baseball regular season edges a little closer every day, playoff races from around the league are gradually taking form.  The final months of the season have the potential to produce any number of dramatic, memorable outcomes, especially with some divisional races being three teams deep.  Although the teams with the greatest divisional leads- Texas Rangers and San Diego Padres- seem to be on the verge of pulling away, their respective magic numbers are still 42 and 46.

Oddly, those are not the magic numbers that I care about at this time.  The only number that matters to me is 45, because that is how many days must slowly pass before the Season 2 premiere of HBO’s Eastbound & Down on September 26^th, which just so happens to be my birthday, as well as a mere 24 hours after Dee’s birthday on the 25^th.

Whether you are an actual fan of baseball or not, the show is sheer genius and absolutely hilarious.  Out of all the conversations that I have had with others about the show, I can honestly say that I have never had someone openly assert their distaste. In fact, I have never even experienced an individual who seems to be on-the-fence, or “ehh” about it.

We are a society that loves, “The Man With The Golden Dick.”

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The baseball blog Batter Chatter is a wonderful website where, as they put it, “baseball and language intersect.”  Each day Batter Chatter gives a break down on some unique baseball terminology, in the form of a definition and references to its historical usage.  As one who has always been as interested in the history and culture of baseball as much as the game itself, I find this place to be infinitely fascinating.  So I could not have been happier when today I found the topic of Batter Chatter to be the bit of baseball vernacular so dear to all of our hearts.  Thanks to David Wright’s dreadful performance last night (sorry, Dee) Batter Chatter found it appropriate to discuss the Golden Sombrero.  They even mentioned this very website and its relation to the atrocious accomplishment of being crowned with that sweet, gilded, Mexican hat.  Kudos to you Batter Chatter; keep up the good work.

There is much more to professional baseball, along with every other pro sport, than just the action taking place on the field. While it is the accomplishments and exploits between the foul lines that fans want to see, it is the out of site front office operations that are actually driving the billion dollar industry of baseball. An organization’s success is now determined as much by its balance sheets as it is by its box scores, and the recent happenings of the Texas Rangers provide a perfect example of when on and off-field performance can become mutually exclusive.

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Apparently Yadier Molina didn’t appreciate Brandon Phillip’s comments from Monday, and he wasted no time displaying his discontent with the Reds’ second baseman.  Like any respectable baseball player would do, Molina confronted Phillips after he tried acting all “buddy-buddy” with him as he stepped up to the plate, in his first at-bat on Tuesday.  All hell broke loose, the benches cleared, and Jason LaRue is in some pain today.

The bigger story here is that Chris Carpenter finally got to throw down.  For those who have watched him pitch this season, Carp has been at the center of several confrontations and skirmishes, but nothing that had materialized into a bench clearing brawl.  Thus, it comes as no surprise that he was one of key players in Tuesday’s brawl- he’s been itching for this for the past 4 months.  Here’s some videos from the Reds/Cardinals fight from Tuesday:

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