<font color=goldenrod>Garza is known for being bad at fielding bunts, so he gets mad at the other team for doing the smart thing and targeting his weakness? MAKES SENSE.</font>

Also, Joe Buck and Tim McCarver did an A's game.

Now I've seen it all.

There were two guys who were breaking into the majors at the same time back around 89-90 that not only shared the same name, including middle name, but also the same birthdate. I'm pretty sure the name was Greg Smith.

Greg Olson maybe? One was an OF for the Braves and the other a RP for the O's. Maybe.

I need a stream of the Giants feed asap.

The nice thing about the Reds getting obliterated by the Cardinals this weekend is I can finally let go of any hopes I had about the Reds making a deep postseason run this year. So much more relaxing this way.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 

the Rockies are bad and I feel bad

Just found it. I remembered this occurrence was mentioned on the back of a Score baseball card. I even remembered they got known by the state they were born in. Took some searching but I finally got it:

http://tradingcarddb.com/Images/Card.../144-635Bk.jpg

I fucking love going to baseball games.

<font color=goldenrod>Love knowing that even if A-Rod is out for 200+ games and the Yankees will get 2014 to spend more money, he'll just come back in 2015 at age 39 and still have 3 years and $61 million remaining on his deal.

By that point I wonder if the Yanks would just swallow the (very expensive) bitter pill and buy out the rest of his contract.</font>

Well, assuming they get under the luxury cap for 2014, I don't think the money issue will even matter for them anymore. At least that's my understanding.

Nothing like a lazy summer day at the ballpark. I have to admit now that the intensity is gone at Wrigley and empty seats are all over the place, the easy going atmosphere is quite pleasant. Just sitting around listening to the sounds of the game without goofy cartoons and sound effects after every pitch. Lost in my own thoughts. Yeah.

Never been to Wrigley. To be entirely honest, I've only ever been to 2 cities for baseball, Toronto and Detroit. Need to start a cross-country journey to visit them all.

The masonry veneer my company manufactures is all over PNC Park though, so that's kind of cool. Would be nice to see it in person I guess.

For all my bitching about how the cubs treated me, its one of the few places where you can watch a pure game and aren't beat over the head with all the goofyness a lot of modern parks have. At least for now.

No one seems to talk about Comerica. How's that park?

I've been to Turner (and Fulton Co. before it), Nationals Park, and Camden. All nice parks. Turner has terrible concession lines though; I had no problem getting in line for food at Camden a week or so ago.

My list is Chase Field, Wrigley and Rangers Ballpark. Loved all 3. When I get a full time job, I'm going to do one of these tours during the summer:

http://www.jaybuckley.com/

Indeed, Camden is a truly awesome venue and has a great lay out.

Comerica is a great park. Obviously I have little to compare to as I haven't been to many other parks, but I've always had good times there. Typical day is like today, drive over to Detroit and park on Gratiot street, walk to the park and scalp tickets (or just buy at the box office, standing room is only $17) and just get wastey off $5 beers while shouting for Andy Dirks to do something. BASEBALL!

The Braves Greg Olson was a Catcher. I want to say Gregg Olson (the O's reliever) did play for Atlanta at one point. He may have even caught for him at one point, I can't remember.

Actually going to check out "U.S. Cellular Field" (fucking hate corporate names) next month when I'm in Chicago for Riot Fest. Cubs are on a road trip that weekend or I'd hit up Wrigley too.

I've been to Citizens Bank (and the Vet :(), Fenway, and Camden. Enjoyed them all. Been trying to get to Nationals Park since my cousins live kinda close. One day...

Also took a tour of Camden Yards (and M&T Bank Stadium) a few years ago, which was neat.

<font color=goldenrod>Citi Field is a gorgeous park, able to walk around the entire stadium so you can check the game out from any angle. PNC Park is really awesome as well, if I lived in Pittsburgh I'd go out of my way to go to a shitload of games.

In terms of other active stadiums I've only been to New Yankee Stadium and Citizen's Bank Park once each, both seemed nice. Also only went to Fenway Park once but it was in the late '90s so I don't remember a whole lot about it, have to go again.</font>

I've been to Coors Field, Nats Park, Camden and Fenway. Nats Park and Coors were great, Fenway on the other hand felt so cramped (this and the Coors visit were in the mid 90s so Coors was fairly new at that point) and Camden was in Baltimore. Camden is a nice stadium, but you have to deduct points for that town.

Yankees are happy to get away from the juggernaut team of the Padres.

Girardi has "penciled in" A-Rod for the game tonight in Chicago. MLB having a press conference around noon.

Over the last month or so I had begrudgingly built up some sympathy for Phil Hughes getting no run support but he threw it all away yesterday. Such a cockhat

My brothers were just in DC for a game (The Harper walk-off HR) and were not impressed with the stadium for whatever reason. Personally, I love PNC in PBurgh.

As tired as I am of this entire PED thing, I might have to tune into the game just to see the crowd reaction. Should be one for the ages.

I liked it. Parking was a problem because your options are pay a bunch to park close or pay a little to get murdered, but the park itself is nice. They've got this green steel and brick scheme going on that's pretty cool. And they have memorabilia and historical stuff scattered everywhere inside the park which I appreciate. It's not as great as PNC or AT&T Parks but it can hold its own.

Really the only teams that need new stadiums because they're so shitty are Tampa Bay and Oakland (unfortunately).

Everyone else has a brand new state of the art palace, a place that's kind of old but has been renovated to something comfortable, or a(n) historic landmark if ballpark where people would riot if anything happened to it.

WE HAVE NAMES for 12 players who will agree to serve the suspension without appealing:

• Nelson Cruz, Texas Rangers outfielder.
• Everth Cabrera, San Diego Padres shortstop.
• Jhonny Peralta, Detroit Tigers shortstop.
• Antonio Bastardo, Philadelphia Phillies reliever.
• Jordany Valdespin, New York Mets outfielder.
• Francisco Cervelli, Yankees catcher.
• Jesus Montero, Seattle Mariners catcher.
• Cesar Puello, New York Mets outfield prospect.
• Fautino De Los Santos, San Diego Padres pitching prospect.
• Sergio Escalona, Houston Astros pitching prospect.
• Fernando Martinez, New York Yankees outfield prospect.
• Jordan Norberto, free-agent pitcher.

How long are the suspensions? Rest of the season?

Just the 1st offense 50 gamer

Fucking Valdespin. He's already serving a ban now for hot dogging a home run trot and instigating a brawl. He called Terry Collins a cocksucker a month ago. He show boated while down 10 runs and got pissy when his team didn't stick up for him. He hit below the Mendoza line.

He's a cancer. Release him.

BUT.......BUT..........What about A-Ro(i)d? He's gonna play? Right?!

Supposed to be announced later today.

Edit: Turns out it was a lot sooner than later. Officially suspend till end of 2014 but can play while appealing since MLB dropped that part of the demands.

Yankees will owe him an extra $6 million if he ties Willie Mays in HRs (13 away).

Suspension doesn't go into affect for A-Rod until Thursday, so he's in the lineup tonight apparently.

BIOGENESIS HOT FUCKING STOVE

Anyone memba when people were marveling over the Pineda/Montero swap?

As far as the suspensions go. Tigers look smart for shoring up SS at the deadline. Wonder if Texas will be looking for a temp bat or if they'l just bite the bullet and platoon Jeff Baker and David Murphy in right since they sound averse to putting Profar out there.

Pineda has been pitching in Triple A for a month and a half. Feels like that 1 season 2 years ago was a fluke and they're afraid to pull the trigger and put him in the big boy rotation over Pettitte or Hughes.

6 starts 23.1 innings. FIP of 3.11 and 10 k per 9. Decent numbers but it looks like they're being very careful with him. This late in the season would be shocked if he does anything other than start a 2nd game of a double header or come up as a reliever in September.

There's tons of places to park close (~3-4 block walk) to the park "if you know where to go", but that's true of any city really.


Coming from the Canadian side is great too, because if you don't want to drive you can take the tunnel bus over that basically drops you off at the front door.

Thing I love about the Iglesias pickup is that even if Peralta wasn't being suspended, he's a FA after this season anyway and most likely gone from all reports I've been hearing, so it was an inevitability regardless. Loving the kid so far.

You know you can park at Greektown casino for free and walk over. Figured I'd tell you. Also Tony, we talk about this every year, but when are we going to a game?

Alex speaking now

Lol I love A-Rod.

90% of the time I go I end up parking on Gratiot and Antietam, but lately I've been seeing a lot of broken glass and cars being broken into ETC so I'm a bit wary. But it's a good way to beat the traffic rush and not pay for shit.


I'm down anytime I'm in town. I live up in Cambridge ON now so I don't go to as many games as I'd like to, but I come down to Windsor on weekends often. I always try to hit up the Sunday afternoon game if I'm in town and Tigers are at home. I think the next time I'm going to be down is the last weekend of August, so "in theory" the Sept 1 game I would go to... but I have like 3 fantasy football drafts that day so I don't think I'll end up going. :o

I don't know when my next venture down will be. I'll try to remember to hit you up on FB next time I for sure have plans to go. This weekend was kind of impromptu (decided Sat. night that we'd go to the game Sunday) so it was kind of hard to plan around.

He came out of the game the other day because of shoulder tightness or something and is going for MRIs. He's coming back from serious shoulder surgery that a lot of pitchers don't come back from the same player, I don't think they're gonna rush him at all.

I understand Pineda's ordeal but it just seems like a wash with 2 lost years and probably at least one more year of "feeling out." The trade was not good for either side, I guess was my point.

NVM forgot Tigers starting a series against the Tribe tonight. These Indians need to start fading any time now.

Mine as well. :)

So is Drew Stubbs ever gonna "get it together" ? Seems even his vaunted defense has been lacking this season.

Braves win 11 straight, media cares little.

<font color=goldenrod>Never expected the Braves to run away with the division like this.

My Nationals/Angels World Series prediction is sure looking great.</font> :(

Looks like Howard Kendrick just fucked up a "lower extremity." Maybe he'll be OK

I didn't either, but I thought they would certainly make the playoffs. Still, the offense has under-performed for a good portion of this year, and the Braves don't really have a shutdown starter, so I don't know what the playoffs will bring. Bullpen has been unreal considering they lost Venters and O'Flaherty, so if the offense can hand the game to them late, we could make a run. But I don't think the Braves could handle the Tigers (just from the way they dominated the interleague series).

And yeah, I do believe the Braves have the easiest remaining schedule in the league, so they should get top seed.

Braves-Pirates NLCS rematch 21 years in the making

Fucking hate hearing people cry about the Yankees playing A-Rod. The dude has the right to an appeal, and even the fucking Yankees have a right to a dude who will post better than a 557 OPS at 3rd.

<font color=goldenrod>I wanna see the reaction at Yankee Stadium on Friday.</font>

I'll be there Saturday, kinda bummed Ill miss the reaction on Friday

<font color=goldenrod>The hell? Adam Ottavino wears number 0? I thought I had read that 0 and 00 were both banned from being used.</font>

Think only the NFL has them banned because of positional reasons.

The offense under-performed part of the year? Everyone knew it'd be a streaky offense. But they're second in the league in runs and OPS. I say they're doing fine.

As far as not having a shutdown starter, I disagree. Mike Minor has been fantastic. He may not be in the Kershaw, Felix, Harvey tier of dominance, but he's in that next group. He's our #1 come playoff time. 2.76 era, 1.04 WHIP, 8.2k/9. He's an ace at this point, and has been since the middle of last year (though that was overshadowed by Medlen). And Tehran might even be better. If you take away his first couple of starts this year, he was a 2.38 era with a 1.09 WHIP. Then, you need to figure out the next two. Medlen, Beachy, and Maholm are all capable of being very good, and even dominant at times. Hopefully they find it in the next two months. And Wood has been pretty good the last two times out.

Totes got on the kiss cam tonight

u can kiss my DIIIIIIIIIICCCCKKKKKKKKKKK

How come all the white guys on the A's look like huge nerds


Love the A's

Hey RoXer, what's Fonzy's favorite team?

The A's!!!!

Love A.J. Griffin for no real reason other than a sick curveball that was very curvy one day so I decided I would like him. Love him and Jerry Blevins because Blevins sounds like a Jerry Lewis/Professor Frink thing to say.

Arizona Diamondbacks upcoming games:

Just finished 3 games against 1st place Boston
2 games against 2nd place Tampa Bay
3 games against 3rd place Baltimore trying to climb back into the 1st
3 games against 1st place (what?) Pittsburgh
4 games against 3rd place Cincinatti trying to climb back into 1st
An entire month of a season deciding fracas against divisional opponents

And they end it against Washington which may or may not be important games when the time comes

<font color=goldenrod>Fucking love Eric Young, Jr.</font>

I'm convinced that 40 percent of the Braves lead could be attributed to incompetent divisional opponents.

Didn't they start their streak by sweeping the Cardinals?

Dunno if you meant current streak or just in general, whatever. It's not like they're the Reds and haven't beaten any good teams this year

Talking about their divisional lead

Was watching Kuroda pitch tonight and thought to myself, "holy shit, Hideki Irabu hung himself."

The Braves played the hard part of their schedule first. The easiest games have yet to come, a good deal against these crappy divisional opponents.

The second place team is 4(?) games under .500... Quite an advantage for the Squaws

http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/18w8.../ku-xlarge.gif

http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/18w8.../ku-xlarge.gif

I'm not denying that the Braves haven't been playing well offensively, but they have still been underperforming (in my opinion) until recently. Actually, its basically gone as Justin Upton has gone, for the most part. Uggla and BJ are huge holes in the lineup (even with Uggla's HRs and walks, which are the only things that make him passable), and Simmons wasn't doing amazingly well offensively until recently. Even Gattis' power has disappeared. But having Heyward and Justin playing well means the Braves are scary. If Heyward can stay healthy for more than a week, that is.


Minor has been great, but I say the Braves lose on paper to a ton of other playoff teams if he's the best we can put up in Game 1. And I'm not putting any stock in Teheran in the playoffs, considering how untested he is.

that was from tonight btw

thats not the old one

But to wrap up my ramblings, as a Braves fan and an Atlanta sports fan, I am allowed to be skeptical about the success of my team in the playoffs. One championship in all sports combined isn't so great, guys.

no kidding

oh wait, the mercury

nvm i guess

That's not a real sport.

So tired of the shaving cream pie, the big jump pile at the plate on a walkoff as well as the helmet flip halfway down the 3B line I'm the case of a homer.

Thing I hate more than both is throwing the ball back after an opposing team homers at Wrigley. So fn stupid.

I'm with you on the shaving cream.

Big celebrations of walkoff HR are only acceptable in MEANINGFUL games. Let's try and tone that down when the Twins play the Astros and what have you.

Throwing back the ball is whatever.

Waving during anything less than a 4 run lead is a big no no. Wave all you want if the lead is 4 or more.

I seriously refuse to do The Wave anymore. I mean it's there for the kids to have fun, so I don't know why I care, but I think it just makes people stop paying attention to the game. And Braves fans aren't the most vocal most of the time (that one-game playoff debacle popoff was crazy), so I want them focused on the game!

Joey RoXer loves the Wave.

SID BREAM WAS OUT!!!! FUCK JERRY MEALS!!!!

What's even worse was when people in other stadiums do it. Yeah, it's a thing in Chicago, but that doesn't mean you get to do it in COLORADO, even IF the Cubs are visiting.

Hey Wave, 1986 called. They don't want you back.



So the Pirates have left:
2 vs Marlins
3 @ Rockies
3 @ Cards
3 vs Dbacks
3 @ Padres
4 @ Giants
3 vs Brewers
3 vs Cards
3 @ Brewers
3 more @ Cards
3 @ Rangers (BAN THE DH!)
4 vs Cubs
4 vs Padres
3 vs Reds
3 @ Cubs
3 @ Reds


Still feels like a LOT of baseball to determine NL Central champs.

Hate that throwing the ball back after an opposing HR has become a thing around the league. So dumb.

Here's the thing about the hr ball:

As soon as it happens everyone starts yelling to throw it back. What if I just caught a future HOFers homer? The crowd will boo the poor soul who caught it and they eventually cave. If you were to ask the crowd why should I throw it back they would yell that "its tradition". Yes. Let's keep up tradition with a team that hasn't won a championship in 104 years. Whatever you've been doing for good luck has worked wonders.

And yes....fuck the wave. Again, when I see if at Wrigley I cringe. 1984 playoffs for gods sake.

I used to work with a 55 year old closeted homosexual. He was very open with me but he hated the way he was, like a self loathing gay guy. He would insult and rip apart gay people and make fun of lesbians and the on going issue of gay marriage all the while carrying on a cyber relationship with a guy in Brazil named Luis. Frank Drebin in striking me the same way right now, a brooding and self-loathing Cubs Fan.

Two things:

1) You know why

2) People who go to Wrigley and Cubs fans can be two different groups of fans.

It's dumb because when the ball hits the field, what does the ball girl do with it? She gives it to another fan in the crowd which defeats the entire purpose of throwing it back.

Also I know it ain't over til it's over, but Phillies :'(

(though they did win last night! :y:)