More hot PCL playoff action!
The Tacoma Rainiers, who lost yesterday, again host Sacramento in Game 2 of the PCL Pacific Conference Championship tonight at 7:05. I believe you can listen on the internet via sportsjuice, here, or on 850 AM for those of you with radios. Go Rainiers.
Remember When
Inspired by Jamey Newberg’s piece, and seeing how it’s an off day and the blog could use a little more friendly fare than we had yesterday, I’m getting nostalgic.
In 1980, I was born into a family that wasn’t exactly what you would consider sports enthusiasts. We didn’t have a television. We didn’t get the paper. My parents had started their own business, and the hours were pretty long. When a babysitter couldn’t be found, my brother and I would often end up at the shop. There was a lot of sweeping involved. Oh, how I hate sweeping. But then Mom or Dad would give me a dollar or two, and I’d begin the long trek a block north to the 7-11 and figure out how I could best use my new found wealth. Sometimes, I’d get flowers for Mom, but not nearly as often as I’d get some kind of candy bar. Eventually, I bought a pack of baseball cards. I didn’t know who any of the players were. I had never heard of these people. But I would read the back of the cards and find stories. There was a vast world contained on the backs of those cards, and interesting faces on the front. And so I became a baseball fan.
I remember my Dad taking my brother and I to watch the Mariners host the Red Sox. Oil Can Boyd was pitching. We took a sign that read “Kick The Can”. Dad was a Carl Yastrzemski fan as a kid, and the Red Sox were actually good, so we took a trip to the Kingdome. There are a few things etched into my memory that I will never forget.
The massive opening when you came out of the tunnel and the whole world seemed to open up in front of your eyes
“Now batting, #21, Allllllllllllllllllllvin Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaavis”
The Kingdome wasn’t the most beautiful ballpark of all time, but man, to a 6 year-old kid, it was something else.
My brother and I shared a room, and we started listening to the radio at nights. If we weren’t listening to TalkNet with Bruce Williams (we were weird), we had Dave Niehaus describing the action. I loved Harold Reynolds, AD, and Dave Valle. The fact that Greg Briley would go by Pee-Wee made me root for him. I couldn’t stand Dave Cochrane or Rey Quinones. Ivan Calderon had weird hair. I thought Bill Swift’s sinkerball was the greatest pitch ever invented. Lee Guetterman was the devil incarnate. And Steve Trout was the worst pitcher of all time.
The team was terrible, but I didn’t care. I would memorize the back of baseball cards, and when our family would go to a game, I would listen for people around us to start asking questions about a player, and I would turn around and answer them, full of pride for knowing something an adult didn’t know.
Fat Drunk Guy remarks that Scott Bradley couldn’t hit? “He hit .278 last year.” Apparently, if you’re 8, it’s cute. I don’t recommend trying it after you hit puberty, though.
I remember hearing stories about the kid up in Bellingham, the guy who is going to save the Mariners. Ken Griffey Jr, the great Mariner hope. And then he doubled in his first at-bat. He was still a teenager. This kid was going to be something else. I was sold. That’s all I needed to see. We were on our way.
Of course, the M’s kept losing. I didn’t care, though. We kept going to the games. We went to see Scott Bankhead pitch, because he was the team’s ace. We went to see Edgar Martinez hit. We went because I had fallen in love with baseball. My mom would bring books. I didn’t care. I would talk to the people sitting next to me.
Eventually, I joined little league, and my Mom would come to those games with 34 blankets and a stack of books too. But she came. And she’d watch occassionally. And she’d ask questions. And after a little pushing and pulling, baseball got ahold of her too. She’d stop bringing books. She started keeping score for my team. She started watching Mariner games when I wasn’t around. She’d switched teams. I’d gotten Mom on the side of the Mariners. We were becoming a family of baseball fans.
The 1994 strike sucked. But at 14, you can forgive anything. And when baseball came back, so did I. The M’s were built to win, finally, and I wasn’t going to let a little bitterness make me miss it.
Jr’s injury. Three months of Alex Diaz. The Vince Coleman trade. Tino going yard. Doug Strange with the pinch hit home run. The unhittable Randy Johnson. Jr’s homer off John Wetteland. Everybody scores! As it did for the city, 1995 solidified my whole family as Mariner nutjobs. We were koolaid drinking members of the cult.
The first 3 games of the ALDS, my school had a trip to the mountains scheduled. We weren’t allowed to bring radios. I brought “an alarm”. They wouldn’t let me skip the night meeting to listen to the game, since we weren’t allowed to have radios and all, but I remember giving Mr. Kercher the alarm and telling him to give me updates. Mr. Kercher was the man. But we kept losing. By the time the trip was over, we were down 0-2. And I spent the whole busride back convincing my friends it wasn’t over yet.
Game 5 was surreal. I was sick as a dog, watching the game with my mom on the couch. When Edgar doubled, I remember jumping off the couch, grabbing her, and jumping up and down. One of the greatest moments of my life.
We went to hundreds of games over the next few seasons. My dad spent $500 so that the four of us could go to the first game at Safeco Field (screw you, Jose Mesa). I started posting to a usenet newsgroup in 1995, where I met these guys named Derek and Jason and a bunch of others. We started having meetups at bars, where I’d be the only there who couldn’t drink. And Derek, Jason, and I became friends. And now we have a blog that you may have heard of.
Baseball brought me joy and tears, hope and pain. The Mariners brought me from the Dick Williams era to being a Lefebvre Believer to wanting to punch Bill Plummer in the nose. I have hundreds of stories I could tell. Baseball is intertwined with my childhood. But now, I love the game most for the friends it brings me. Baseball is a great game, but the joy of watching Felix pitch would be diminished significantly if I had never met Derek, Jason, Jeff, Peter, Jonah, Jake, Pat, or Mike.
“Why do you love baseball?” is a pretty common question for me. I’m never really sure what to say. I just do.
Game Thread, Rainiers vs Rivercats
The Tacoma Rainiers host Sacramento in Game 1 of the PCL Pacific Conference Championship tonight, starting at 7:05. You can go here to listen live. They play game two tomorrow and its dollar day, so if you’ve got a hankering for some playoff baseball, head down to Cheney and check it out.
I’m putting up a game thread for anyone who is planning on listening on the ‘net. Go Rainiers.
Game 138: Mariners at Athletics
Steroid user Ryan Franklin v Rich Haren. Not in the lineup: LF/steroid user Mike Morse. There’s a separate thread for Morse’s suspension and related discussion.
Taking Morse’s place in left field, Ibanez! Taking Ibanez’s place at DH, “DH” Dobbs.
Suggested Excuses For Future Failed Steroids Tests
Michael Morse’s suspension is the third time a Mariner has been suspended for violating the new policy. It’s gotten so bad that the Sacramento Bee is asking whether steroids have replaced caffeine as Seattle’s drug of choice.
Well, at least they both beat heroin.
As Derek pointed out, though, at least Morse’s explanation was original instead of that old fallback, the “tainted supplement,” and was forthright instead of a Palmeiroesque “Winstrol? How did that get there?”
Let’s face it: between the majors and the minors, this team is probably going to need more and better excuses for getting caught.
We at USS Mariner Labs are nothing if not eager to help. Ask anyone, and they’ll tell you that Derek and I are two of the most helpful guys around, deserving honorary merit badges in that arena if only we’d join the Boy Scouts.
Hence, Derek and I collaborated on a handy cheatsheet (no pun intended). These are 15 potential excuses that the next 15 busted Mariners should run up the media flagpole.
The reader should note, however, that neither Derek nor I are in the running for “good taste” merit badges any time soon. So if you’re easily shocked or wish to take this list for anything but mirth … maybe you should go read something else.
Stick around for tomorrow’s post: “Part Two: Okay, I Actually Did Do Steroids, But Here’s Why I Needed To.” Read more
Morse suspended
I’m trying to figure out the right adjective for this press release. Terse? Succint? Spare?
I’d give you the upshot, but the whole release is the upshot:
The Office of the Commissioner of Baseball today announced that Michael Morse of the Seattle Mariners has been suspended 10 days, effective today, for violation of Major League Baseball’s Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment Program.
Bummer.
Love for the Rainiers
There will be playoff baseball in the Puget Sound. The Tacoma Rainiers are headed to the PCL playoffs (without Felix, unfortunately for them). Dates, from the site:
Pacific Conference Championship:
Wednesday, September 7 (7:05 p.m.)
Thursday, September 8 (7:05 p.m.) – Dollar Deal Day with $1 hot dogs, sodas, ice cream and beer.Pacific Coast League Championship:
Friday, September 16 (7:05 p.m.)
Saturday, September 17 (7:05 p.m.)
Sunday, September 18 (1:35 p.m.)
Check it out.
Post-Labor Day Rambling Blues
Random frivolities while wondering if Jerry Rice will go into the Hall of Fame as a Seahawk …
* An amusing item from today’s Mariners Notebook in the P-I:
ESPN cut to a shot of A’s manager Ken Macha kicking the door off the restroom at the end of the A’s dugout in the bottom of the sixth.
Although it might have looked as if he were kicking the door in frustration, he wasn’t. Blanton, who had kicked the door in frustration, was inside. And his kicks had jammed the door.
Oakland bench coach Rene Lachemann, the former Mariners coach, tried to kick the door back into shape. He was unsuccessful. But martial arts student Macha got it done with a few well-placed kicks.
Note to Mariners: if we brawl with the A’s, don’t assume that Macha’s a pushover because he looks like a medieval studies professor.
Note to Jeff Liefer: might want to see if you can catch on with the A’s. It could save you 20 minutes in a key situation.
* Speaking of the P-I and football, if you like that sport where the ball bounces funny, check out my man Danny O’Neil’s Hawks training camp blog. Rumor has it that other denizens of the M’s blogosphere discuss the pratfalls of the Hometown Eleven fairly regularly, too.
* Jeff “Don’t Call Me Matt” Clement is off to a hot start. And you likely know this already, but it’s pronounced CLEHM-ent, not cle-MENT like the Red Sox pitcher. Potato, potahto, tomato, tomahto.
Although now that I think about it, the hobbits in Lord of the Rings say “potato,” but also “tomahto.” This inconsistency is almost as bad as excising the Dernhelm plotline.
Let’s call the whole thing off. As long as we’re discussing pronunciation, though …
* Linguistic conspiracy theory: It cannot be a coincidence that Rick Rizzs pronounces Yorvit Torrealba’s first name exactly the same as he pronounces the appellation of sponsor Jorve Roofing. Clearly, subconscious marketing at work. We should start checking the broadcasts for backward masking.
If I were JoeJessica*, I would see if I could finagle an endorsement deal out of this. “Because everything you call home is … behind the plate”? “Because home is where the catcher is”? Okay, there’s a reason I’m not in advertising.
* Randy Winn, pre-trade: 102 games, six home runs. Randy Winn, post-trade: 32 games, five home runs. Don’t call it a comeback. He’s been here for years. Here’s wishing Winn, a class guy and a quality player, much continued success except during certain obvious interleague play situations.
The Attrition War, Summary and Conclusions
The Mariners suffer more serious arm injuries than other major league teams. This is indisputable. From Ryan Anderson’s multiple shoulder issues to Jorge Campillo’s one-inning debut-and-shutdown (“Hello!” “Goodbye!”) we’ve seen the Mariner system decimated in recent years. This is not a perception issue that’s a result of being too close to the problem.
For this work, I looked at every team’s pitching prospects, as ranked by Baseball America, from 1995-2004, and attempted to find which prospects had serious arm or shoulder injuries requiring surgery that cost them a year of playing time. You can read the methodology notes, or go to the index page for links to all the team pages.
In absolute terms, the Mariners tied with the Reds with nine serious injuries. As a percentage of prospects, they were tied with the Brewers for second place with 32%. The average team was at 20%. Standard deviation was 2.4 (8%). The Mariners were two deviations from the mean. That’s significant, but it’s not huge.
Team # Shldr Elbow Total Inj. % Reds 25 7 2 9 36% Mariners 28 5 4 9 32% Brewers 25 5 3 8 32% Braves 27 4 4 8 30% Dodgers 27 3 5 8 30% Rangers 32 3 6 9 28% Cardinals 36 5 4 9 25% Cubs 37 3 6 9 24% Mets 29 2 5 7 24% Orioles 31 3 4 7 23% Yankees 26 2 4 5 23% Tigers 32 4 3 7 22% Royals 24 2 3 5 21% Astros 29 5 1 6 21% Diamondbacks 20 0 4 4 20% Indians 36 2 5 7 19% White Sox 33 2 4 6 18% Angels 28 2 3 5 18% Devil Rays 17 1 2 3 18% Marlins 34 3 3 6 18% Giants 31 2 3 5 16% Phillies 28 3 1 4 14% Rockies 28 3 1 4 14% Pirates 22 0 3 3 14% Blue Jays 24 1 2 3 13% Nationals 32 1 3 4 13% Red Sox 32 1 3 4 13% Padres 28 0 3 3 11% Twins 22 1 1 2 9% Athletics 32 0 0 0 0% Average 28.7 2.5 3.2 5.6 20% Total 855 75 95 170
I looked at “expected injury rate”, figuring that 1/5th of the pitchers would get injured. The Mariners were four pitchers above that, along with the Reds, with the Brewers at three. You would expect the A’s to have six pitchers go down during this period. They had none.
Here are the questions that have come up repeatedly:
Read more
The Ballad of Bloomquist Continues
I’m late with this one — sort of a theme for me this week — but Derek’s latest P-I column is a sterling piece of research that answers the musical question, “Is the team really better off with Bloomquist in the lineup?”