Last night, history was made as Daneeka's Ghost became the first two-time winner of Spookymilk Survivor. Oh! And the Mavericks won their first-ever NBA Finals over a bunch of tin-eared, um, dumb-dumbs.
218 thoughts on “June 13, 2011: The Champs”
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Mak, you two-timer!
Time for the Ghost to put two gold stars over his gravatar.
Next team's record to pass: Oakland A's
It was really sad flying into Omaha airport last night. Hwy's 29 and 680 both have water over parts of them, not to mention several farms in the floodplain there.
I-29 from Sioux City to Omaha was very wet a 10 days ago when we left for the KC trip, but 680 was pretty safe from water at that time.
Read this, and then read this. Or at least scan them. One's by a umpteen time sportswriter of the year! and another is from a guy who started writing in his mother's basement.
Talk about being torched down low.
Here's what I think: This season could not have played out any better for the NBA. Could. Not. Have.
LeBron's bolting to Miami is a warning salvo for the league, long term. Even the players get that, I think. But, while the league has some real dregs (a specific example eluuuuuuuuuuuuuuudes me, but trust me, some teams are really bad), there are a lot of really good teams. The playoffs were wide open. Wide open. Then, we had a Finals series with the Black Hats v. the old, ringless guys (not a single player for Dallas had a championship). But the old guys played terrific team ball, their superstar was HUGE all post-season (the first half last night notwithstanding) and Mark Cuban shut his mouth and let his organization take down the villain. Couldn't draw it up any better than that.
the "We Are All Nowitznesses" photo in the second link is priceless.
Is it just me or is Chris Bosh a pretty likable guy? I hate that he's lumped in with Wade and James now.
And one other thing, is Juwan Howard still in the NBA?! That guy's older than me!
There were seven moderately amusing things in that first column.
You're being generous.
You must not have scrolled to the bottom.
This realignment talk is really saturating sportscenter/baseball talk as of late. sean/spooky, can we put a up a poll or something getting the citizens feelings on this, or maybe a post featuring a poll where realignment talk can me confined to?
Jim Bowden obviously hates the Twins. No Milwaukee or White Sox? Geographic realignment that puts the Twins in with Pittsburgh?
I think I am pretty seriously against realignment, as currently proposed-- or Bowden proposed. I love the weighted schedule. I want to play the White Sox 18 times a season. I think it breeds true rivalries versus narratives beat over our heads by the media (see: Yankees v. Mets).
I think you stay 14/16 for the leagues, move to two divisions in each league, and you can keep the five playoffs teams (top two in division and one wildcard). Teams below:
If you want to get crazy and switch some teams from the AL to the NL that is fine, too. I think this works fine though. Keep 18 games against your division mates and mix it up with the the other division. Inter-league would probably have to die with this idea, but I am pretty okay with that.
Or you know, we could just keep things they way they are. It seems to be working fine to me.
Well that spaced out poorly.
There, that should help.
Brewers and Astros were supposed to be in the NL, also.
I like the idea of the unbalanced schedule in theory, and I sort of like the idea of the wild card in theory, but those things don't play nicely together. It seems stupid to me to have a way into the playoffs that pits teams against each other who had very different schedules.
I like the unbalanced schedule in all fashions. The Wild Card coming out of an unbalanced schedule just goes to "Sometimes, life isn't fair."
I love it that the Twins face the same four teams half of the time. Otherwise, how would I have ever gotten to know and love the miserable mid-aughties Royals?
Really, you love that the Twins play so many games against four teams? I'm cool with some imbalance, but when a team is bad, a big part of the draw is seeing other teams come to town. Variety is nice, especially when you're playing each team so many times already.
I hate the unbalanced schedule. I hate that half the games are against the same four teams. I hate that "strength of schedule" actually matters in MLB.
I don't think the schedule has to be totally balanced but half the games within the division is just too many.
Although I'm a Twins fan, I don't like that they can make the playoffs by simply beating up on Cleveland and KC and the NL and then get killed by the AL East and AL West. Maybe if we had to play them more often, we'd actually compete instead of focusing on not having to play them again this season.
Yeah, I really do like it that way. Maybe I would like a smaller league overall, but I like the recurring characters, getting to know opponents well, their weaknesses and their strengths. That familiarity with the same four teams is part of the draw for me. (Which goes along with my three favorite teams being the Twins, the Royals, and the ChiSox.)
I'm with AMR on this. Divisions should mean something. If you get rid of the imbalance, then you should get rid of divisions entirely and make the playoffs a six-team tournament in each league (top two seeds with first-round byes).
18 games against intradivision opponents in that format is crazy. Cr-a-zy. The NL divisions would play 126 games within their division. That's more games than most sports leagues play for their entire season.
To me, if there is any re-alignment, you have to split into an "Eastern League" and a "Western League" with a DH division and a non-DH division in each league.
In a way that I think is difficult to understand from the eastern and central time zones, it is legitimately difficult to watch much of a west-coast team's games. With only two other teams in the western time zone and their "rival" the Padres, the Mariners wind up playing their home games plus 21 games in the western time zone. That's slightly less than 2/3rds in their home time zone. And because they are on the west, basically one of every six games is a weekday day game because the getaway day basically always has to be a day game. Day games in the east start at 10am, so some days the game is over before you even realize their might be a game. There's no consistent time to expect the Mariners to be playing, and the lack of even a MT opponent makes things difficult, too.
Having one all-east-coast league could be brilliant for fans in the eastern time zone. Game times would be more convenient and more consistent. TV ad revenue would also be higher with more games in prime time. Fans would have more away games in locations they could travel to, boosting attendance from visiting fans. If having the Yankees and Mets play six times a year is a good idea, having them play 12 times a year is probably a better idea. The league would have lower costs for travel and the players would have less wear and tear from travel. I like the idea of mixing DH and non-DH rules, but the league could choose one way or another and I'd be fine with that. Fans in the central time zone would see the least benefit, but even then, something like 3/4ths of their games would be in the central time zone, which I think would be brilliant. West coast road swings could be easier, too. The Twins could spend a week in one hotel in San Francisco to play three games against the A's followed by three games against the Giants. They could spend a week in one hotel in LA to play three games against the Dodgers and three games against the Angels. Padres/D-backs would be a pretty reasonable road trip. Even Seattle/Denver would make some sense. With easier travel for the players, I think we'd see better baseball.
Ideally, I think I'd just let teams choose DH or non-DH as a ground rule and align things like:
East: Yankees, Mets, Brooklyn, Philly, Red Sox, O's, Nats, Atlanta
Mideast: Cleveland, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Toronto, Montreal, Florida, TB
Midwest: Twins, Brewers, Cubs, White Sox, Royals, Cardinals, Astros, Rangers
West: Rockies, Diamondbacks, Dodgers, Giants, Padres, Angels, A's, Mariners
What's that? Brooklyn and Montreal don't have teams? Well, someone better get to work.
Ideally, I think I'd just let teams choose DH or non-DH as a ground rule and align things like:
Yes! My favorite DH rule is to let the home team decide. You get the symmetry of both leagues/conferences/whatevers having the same rules while still allowing quirks, just like differing park sizes.
There's also a certain practicality to it, where teams that have signed a DH to a long-term contract don't have to write that contract off as a loss, or teams which have decided to pass on a hitter without defensive abilities aren't forced to switch to the DH immediately.
I would not support the American League and the National League being destroyed. They are unique brands of baseball, which Selig already sullied once with his League-hopping Brewers. If anything I would like them to make Interleague play less common than it is now, and reserve it for special rivalries.
See, I just don't see a real difference between the AL and NL. Yeah, there's the DH rule, but that's what, 30, 40 years old? Leagues and divisions have been constantly in flux over the last few decades and I think there are a lot more benefits to be had from geographic alignment than drawbacks from destroying what I consider extremely weak brands. If there was any meaningful difference in AL and NL baseball before the DH rule, I have no idea what that difference is, and I've paid a lot of attention to baseball.
If you asked me, the AL and NL are antiquated distinctions, relics of history. If I found MLB today, it's definitely not the way I would decide to split up the league.
Sure, it might not be the way that one would split up the league if starting from scratch, but that doesn't mean the current system is without value. That's what bothered me so much about Neyer's column the other day - the sneer at the impulse many fans feel to conserve the institutions already established. Maybe the current arrangement isn't neat, tidy, and perfectly logical, but it is undeniably a mostly organic arrangement. Post-1901, the major infractions on the organic evolution of the leagues seem to fall under the leaderhship of one man - Bud Selig.
Selig's tenure as Commissioner has one defining characteristic - an all-out assault on the historicity of the game. A short catalog includes moving the Brewers from the American League to the National League after the Royals rejected a similar move, the elimination of the league offices and their consolidation under Selig's own office, assimilation of the umpires, determining World Series home field advantage by the result of the All-Star Game, the creation of wild cards, the entire Steroid debacle, the contraction attempt (which would have eliminated one of the founding franchises of the American League), the previous attempt at radical realignment, and now this realignment proposal. So if something seems like a "relic of history," perhaps we should ask exactly how long it has seemed that way.
Historically-grounded institutions and traditions have significant value, even if they do seem to complicate what might otherwise be made into a tidy little arrangement. Blowing up the leagues simply because there's a more convenient way of organizing MLB would completely unmoor many fans' understanding of where their team has come from, what its legacy is, and the nature of its relationship with the other teams. Maybe a system grounded on history doesn't have easily quantifiable value, but it does have emotional value, and perhaps even more importantly, it serves to connect previous generations of fans and players with those of the present and the future. That sense of the game's permanence is something that many people rely on, even take for granted, to frame their fandom. History is what makes baseball's records seem so much more significant than those of football. History is the game's most precious treasure, and anything that damages that history will damage the mystique and the long-term health of the game.
I agree with everything you're saying, but I think you're giving Selig too much credit. It's not like we haven't had several major changes prior to Selig's reign. Shoot, between the late 60's and early 70's, there were a slew of significant changes as well (ALCS/NLCS, lowered mounds, expansion, free agency, DH), for instance, so this isn't hardly the first time. And the Steriod Debacle was not introduced by Selig.
Like I said elsewhere, I don't mind if they move an NL team to the AL to balance the teams, but that's all I'd hope they'd mess with. And I know that plays havoc with scheduling.
Maybe I should have said it more explicitly; I'm not dead-set against any change. That was the gist of my comment on organic change. For example, the ALCS/NLCS arrangement seems to be a pretty organic outgrowth from the Expansion Era. Just like an addition is built onto a house when the family living there outgrows the original structure, the initial arrangement of the divisions allowed the game to grow into new markets (almost undeniably a good thing) while preserving league relevance.
There are obvious limits to the argument to preserve tradition, and I think free agency is a perfect example. Few, I think, would argue that slavery was an institution worth preserving, tradition though it may have been. It was cancerous, and ultimately nearly fatal to the nation. Free agency was baseball's form of slavery, and had the system continued I think it probably could have been fatal to the game if other sports had allowed it, drawing significant talent away from baseball. Same argument with integration, I think.
Now, other innovations or changes - tinkering with mound height, the DH, etc - definitely altered the game significantly, and really for not much substantive reason beyond innovation. No argument there. However, I suspect that the number of changes during the Selig era outstrip the cumulative changes in the game between, say, the end of the Deadball Era and when Selig first took office.
We could probably go around and around on the steroids thing, and I certainly wouldn't place the blame exclusively on Selig. But even if he wasn't cynically looking the other way (or worse), he was still the guy in charge. If he weren't serving at the pleasure of the people he helped seriously enrich, does anyone think he would still be commissioner after the steroid debacle?
I'm not giving a pass to Selig re: Steroids, but you could just as easily identify the singing of "God Bless America" during the 7th inning as a change instituted by Selig.
I'm not against tinkering, but too much of late has not been so much for the good of baseball as it has been for the good of earning more money and kow-towing to the moneied teams (and I include the late Mr. Pohlad). If there's a way to balance the divisions in a minimal amount of change, do it. But we don't need more playoff teams. Again.
The Selig/steroids thing is a conversation for another time, then.
I agree that the tinkering has been primarily skewed toward making money, which is why I start getting nervous anytime I hear anyone describing baseball as an "entertainment choice" or something like that. I get that nobody's in the game out of pure altruism, but when the short-term is privileged to extract every last available bit profit out of the game I begin to worry about long-term interest in the game itself, which should always be the most important consideration.
Sometimes making more money means that you're serving more customers.
I don't think it's just a more convenient way to split up the teams, I think it's a better way to split up the teams. Throughout what you have deemed an assault on the historicity of the game, baseball has done very well under Selig, especially in spite of the steroids debacle and the on-going revenue-sharing/payroll disparity debacle. There is something to be said for the value of history and tradition, but in a world with hundreds of entertainment choices, I think there is a lot to be said about having a product that is convenient to use.
If you aligned by geography, you could swing for the fences and do something like getting FOX to give you Tuesdays during prime time for baseball. Every local game shown in its local market in local prime time on Tuesday night, and for markets without a local team, they would get either an important match-up or a regional game. I think there would be huge, huge value in being able to put baseball on broadcast television at 7pm from April through September. Do that for five years, and I'd bet you can blow American Idol out of the water.
History and tradition appeal to core fans, customers you have already won over, and you can't forget about them. But you need to continually seek out new customers and I think baseball is in danger of failing on that account. A bold stroke to make local baseball more accessible could be a huge win for the future of baseball.
Ultimately I don't think that history is baseball's most precious treasure. Baseball's most precious treasure is today's game. Its next most precious treasure is tomorrow's game. Joe Mauer's next single is more important than Tony Olivo's last single. Justin Verlander's next no-hitter is more important than Nolan Ryan's last no-hitter. Ichiro's next hit is more important than Puckett's last hit.
Plenty of sources of entertainment have history. Classical music has history. Jazz has history. But in order to remain popular today, you have to continue to capture an audience's imagination today. If you put the Mariners and the Yankees in different divisions, The Double is still The Double. If the Twins and the Tigers are in different divisions, the '87 ALCS is still the '87 ALCS. If the Mets play the Red Sox twelve times a year, Bill Buckner is still Bill Buckner. I don't think history is so easily damaged by change, but I do think that well-considered change can help keep baseball relevant.
I am very much a traditionalist, but I agree with Ubes. Maybe it's having grown up in MN, worked in DC for a long time, and now living in LA, but organizing around time zones makes complete sense. Why not give fans as many games as possible in good time slots? And more away games would be accessible for a weekend road trip.
What you are describing is essentially the NFL's way of managing football. While the NFL is a runaway entertainment success, do you ever get the feeling that the game of football has been superseded by all the other crap the NFL is pushing to keep people interested? I would hate to see that happen to baseball.
And besides, where exactly do fans come from? Not only do core fans raise new generations of core fans, but they also develop new generations of players, umpires, and field staff, and if you change the game too radically, you endanger the very thing that keeps baseball going. Your "new customers" are already getting catered to in ways which are driving away core fans - moats around the prime seats, restrictions on who is allowed to be in the expensive seats during batting practice, exorbitant prices on seats skewed toward the purchasing power corporate buyers, the list goes on and on. There doubtless are ways of growing the game sustainably, but nobody seems interested in that.
Quite honestly, I doubt Justin Verlander's next no-hitter is going to be as important as Nolan Ryan's last no-hitter until Verlander throws four more no-hitters first. (I actually had to look up that number, by the way, so I could correctly subtract from the number of no-hitters I knew Nolan Ryan threw.)
All we're talking about is changing which teams play one another. We're re-scheduling. We're not talking about meaningfully changing the game, except for the DH, which is modern and I would argue, not an important difference between the leagues. Raising the mound. That changes the game. Re-defining the strike zone. That changes the game. At the end of the day, geographic realignment means that we're playing the same game with the same ball, the same nine innings, the same 25 players per side, the same batter-pitcher dynamic, but with game times that are more convenient for fans to watch at game locations that are more convenient for fans to travel to.
I'm actually advocating for MLB to move in a direction opposite to where the NFL has gone of late. The NFL is now trying to market every game to every fan. I want baseball to focus on promoting the local team to fans in its region. I don't want the games on broadcast TV to be Red Sox-Yankees, I want them to be whichever team happens to be playing your local team.
Geographic realignment is philosophically opposed to each of those changes you're talking about. I'm talking about making the games more accessible to fans. I'm talking about no more 10AM Sunday games and no more 10PM Monday games. This isn't for the luxury boxes and this isn't for the banksters. I hate the $2,000 tickets at Yankee Stadium as much as the next guy, provided he really hates the $2,000 tickets at Yankee Stadium.
Geographic realignment is for the Mariners fan who wants to go to church Sunday morning and see the Mariners play Sunday afternoon. It's for the Mets fan who'd rather not turn away from Johan Santana's no-hit bid through six innings because the Mets are in San Diego, it's already midnight, and he has to wake up at 4:30. It's for the Rays fan who would stretch his son's bedtime to 10:30, but can't justify 1:30.
Justin Verlander's next no-hitter is more important than Nolan Ryan's last no-hitter because Nolan Ryan's last no-hitter is done making new fans. Nolan Ryan's last no-hitter has done all of the good it can do. Now it's a footnote. It's someone else's memory. Jacques Jones breaking up Freddy Garcia's no-hit bid is more important to me than Nolan Ryan's last no-hitter. Some kid at the park for Justin Verlander's next no-hitter is going to be able to say that he was there when Justin Verlander threw his third no-hitter. That kid is going to be stoked and he will go see more games. Just telling him that Nolan Ryan was a bad-ass dude who beat the crap out of Robin Ventura and threw seven no-hitters isn't compelling the way that seeing a live no-hitter play out in front of you is.
Hearing about Nolan Ryan's seventh no-hitter is a picture of someone else's family. It's a picture of someone else's vacation. Justin Verlander's next no-hitter is a new family, it's a new vacation. And if Verlander's next no-hitter concludes at 1 AM ET on a Wednesday night in Oakland, while most of the kids in Detroit are asleep, that's a missed opportunity. I'd rather see it conclude at 10 PM ET on a Wednesday night in Atlanta. That's still too late for some, but early enough for many.
The history that matters most is the history that I've witnessed, my personal relationship with baseball. And I think geographic realignment can help foster that relationship.
I agree. A substantial portion of the "value" of a player's accomplishment is due to it's historical comparison to past player(s) performance. Or a team's. The Twins' 2006 seasons was a magical one. And it was a historically magical one, to which this season's potential comeback can be compared.
Why have records at all, then? Why not just wipe the slate clean at the conclusion of every season? The history matters more than you're giving it credit for, ubes. History is why people still get excited every time someone puts together a 35-game hitting streak, or carries a .380 batting average late into the summer. History is why Justin Verlander's second no-hitter has much of the meaning it does, because history gives context and texture to the accomplishments of the current generation of players. The reason why the McGwire/Sosa chase so captivated people was almost entirely because of 60 and 61*, not simply because those two guys were hitting home runs so frequently. Same thing for Bonds, or for any pitcher's pursuit of 300 wins or 3000 strikeouts. Those numbers have meaning because of all the history that is wrapped up in the players who previously reached those heights.
Without history you can certainly marvel at Verlander's no hitter, but without history you have no real way of properly contextualizing how special that performance actually is, or how a pitcher's second no-hitter, while significant, still is a long way from being the most significant no-hitter ever. History acts as a force which exponentially ups the drama and importance of any subsequent no-hitter Verlander throws. Without history every accomplishment is just a statistic, whether it's no batters getting a hit thorough the course of one game, or somebody hitting .400 again, or whatever. Beyond the immediate context of an individual game, history quite frequently is what causes people to root for (or against) certain players. It's an added layer of competition - competition against the greats whose accomplishments have immortalized them. Ryan's last no-hitter will only be done hooking fans when someone breaks that record and becomes immortal themselves.
How many budding baseball fans have played games in their parents' basement, or out in a field somewhere, and fantasized about hitting that record-breaking homerun, or notching that 300th win, or something like it? Sit a kid down and tell them about the time that Ted Williams played in a doubleheader on the last day of the season, even though he could have sat out and technically hit .400 on the season, only to go 6 for 8 and finish at .406. Then tell me that kid isn't going to play something very much like that out in a sports fantasy at some point. That's history at work on that young fan. Tell me that some young Twins fan isn't going to fantasize about hitting the home run that breaks Harmon Killebrew's Twins record. Past accomplishments aren't done making new fans.
As for games played across the country or at odd times of the day, your entire argument begs the question - how did any of us, or anyone before us, become fans? How did my grandfather call himself a Dodgers fan while growing up in south-eastern Minnesota in the 1940s, or call himself a Milwaukee Braves fan while stationed in San Diego in the 1950s? How did I become a Twins fan despite all the games the Twins played out on the west coast back when they were in the AL West? How did my love of baseball survive my dad telling me to go to bed at 8:30, even though home games only started at 7:05? I'm not the only whose love of baseball survived these roadblocks. And all of us became fans before things like MLB.TV or TiVo or DirecTV made it possible to watch just about any game whenever one wants!
Geographic realignment isn't even going to keep teams from the Central time zone from playing games in other time zones. Nearly half of the teams in MLB are in the Eastern time zone, and there likely aren't enough teams in the Mountain and Pacific time zones to prevent a couple teams on the western edge of the Central from being pulled into their orbit. It might solve problems for fans in Chicago or Milwaukee, but what about those in Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, or Minneapolis? Somebody is going to get the short end of the stick, and the rest of the league profiting at the expense of fans in a handful of cities seems more unfair than expecting everyone to make trips outside their time zones.
Let's not forget that Nolan Ryan threw his last no-hitter the same day as Rickey broke the stolen base record and proclaimed himself, in Lou Brock's presence, as the "The Greatest... ofalltime" (whcih he was, but still). Rickey was just being Rickey, but that last no-hitter was a nice antidote to his Rickeyness.
Just because I'm arguing that today's baseball is more important than yesterday's baseball does not mean that I am arguing that history is irrelevant. Records and context will still very much exist if baseball realigns its divisions and leagues. Especially in light of something like career records, NL/AL isn't even a meaningful distinction since so many players have played some of their career in each league. I have no idea what the record is for career no-hitters in the AL or career no-hitters in the NL, or career hits in the AL or career hits in the NL, but I know what the records are for career no-hitters in MLB and career hits in MLB.
Comparing from era to era there are already plenty of caveats that we deal with all the time, dead-ball era, WWII era, the offensive low period of the '60s, the lowering of the pitcher's mound, the institution of the DH, expansion, PEDs, park factors, the Wild Card, etc. I think it's a completely valid position that baseball's history would survive just fine through realignment of leagues as it has survived through many other changes in baseball's history. Fans aren't going to be so disoriented that they no longer feel a real allegiance to their favorite team.
The DH rule was not a Selig driven change and that, more than anything, chisels away at the foundation of the game. I think the umpiring assimilation was good. The AL and NL structures are charming, I think and I like the idea of limiting the play between one league and the other as much as possible. But, the DH changes how the game is actually played and that was not Bud Selig.
You're absolutely correct; the DH does alter the game, and Selig was only involved as an owner when it was instituted. (Now, is the DH as game-altering as interleague play? I would lean toward "No.") Going further down the line of objection, baseball has been so indecisive about the DH that it's no wonder many people thoroughly dislike it. Simply perusing the Repository's article made me realize how willy-nilly MLB has been about it:
So, 38 years after implementation the World Series and interleague play function under one set of DH rules, while the All Star Game gets another? Obviously that makes no sense. The only thing consistent about the DH is that MLB has been entirely inconsistent about how it is to be used. I can understand the calls for uniform policy. Now, I happen to like the DH, but think it's fine if the AL does one thing and the NL does another as long as MLB drafts a DH rule to govern instances when AL and NL clubs play each other and sticks with it.
The other thing that I think most people don't take into account is that the DH, while recently implemented, is a concept which has much more life. That Connie Mack was thinking about a DH back in 1906 is a little telling, I think, as is the NL's toying with it in the Twenties, the eventual 8-4 decision by AL clubs to implement it, and the NL's rejection of it. Today those last two things would never happen because there are no league offices and everything is instituted on an MLB-wide basis. It's not an organic change, but it's one that has greater precedent than most journalists or fans give it.
Hitman, I don't like all the pacific time-zone games that schedule implies.
To make it clear, I'd rather there be no realignment or schedule tinkering at all.
Bowden's gotta lay off the sauce.
Yeah, his plan makes no sense.
Six teams make the playoffs from each "conference", every team plays the five-game first round, and each round after that is seven games? But that leaves six teams. Short of first round byes like in the NFL, 12-team playoffs won't work.
Yeah, put MN in the central, even though it's west of all but one of the midwest teams. Because he cares more about the Cubs-Brewers rivalry.
Can't do a poll (yet, I'll put one up tonight or tomorrow morning), but maybe a post would be worthwhile, especially if someone put some thought into it.
The only thing I'll agree with is the two leagues should have the same number of teams. Otherwise, hands off, please.
To get the same number, you have to add two (NY could handle a third team, and ????), subtract two (might be a problem), or increase interleague play so that it goes all season. So, you can't get what you want without some serious hands on.
Does Florida even know they have baseball teams?
Absolutely, but they're all too old to go to the games.
Or games scheduled after 4:00 PM.
duh. That interferes with the Early Bird Specials at restaurants.
NY and Austin?
Keep Austin Weird.
Brooklyn and Mexico City.
Mexico City is so far away. What about Monterrey? Major business metro with significant population. And would still have the benefit of a complete Mexican TV market. Seems plausible....if it weren't for the drug cartel.
Havana and Portland.
Portland gets tossed around a lot...but I don't see it being a viable option. That and Vegas.
it's the 22nd largest tv market in the country. The only market larger without a MLB team is Sacramento-Stockton-Modesto, which, for all intents and purposes, really is part of the Bay Area market.
Sure, but Portland would rather have MLS than AAA baseball, which probably tells us all we need to know.
But the problem with Portland is that outside of Portland, what's the TV market? There are no ancillary markets, really. Then there's the issue of little corporate money there, relatively speaking. And thirdly, Portland didn't support their AAA team to the point of losing them.
I just don't see a Portland franchise being able to thrive.
synergy with Seattle, of course. It worked so well in the NBA!!!!1111one1111!!!
Ha, precisely. And then you can bring up the same deal with Charlotte. How about them Bobcats!
My impression of the pacific northwest is that there isn't much of a team sports culture here. Yeah, you can draw some crowds, and football support is good, but with all of the non-team-sports recreation in the area (hiking, skiing, camping, swimming, boating, etc.) and with so many nationally-televised games ending before you get a chance to sit down and watch them after dinner, there just isn't the same culture around them that you see elsewhere. The Seattle sports culture seems to be more a contest of making sure you abandon a team before it sinks than it is about supporting a team through thick and thin.
Even for as much credit as, say, Seattle has gotten for drawing fans to Sounders games, at times it really is the quietest group of 36,000 fans you can find. There's so much potential for fans to be involved in the game and cheering on their team that I don't see realized at Sounders games.
If anyone should expand to Portland, it's probably the NFL. Big TV market, easier to draw fans for 8 regular season games than 81 regular season games.
I'd love to see baseball expand to Havana. Or move the Rays. Whichever.
It would be an awesome way to invigorate baseball in South Beach.
I had political shenanigans in mind as well (which would be required precursors), but my suggestion was only half tongue-in-cheek.
I doubt the political considerations will last terribly much longer.
The Havana InFidels. I went with Mexico City because I thought it was more likely than a commie stronghold...
The elevation at Mexico City's airport is 7343 ft. They'd need a humidor for their humidor.
Oh wow. Hmmm, I wonder if I could use the program I wrote to estimate home runs at Target Field to compare how Coors would do in Mexico City.
sean, if you chase that one down please post the results.
Carona Field, baby!
In my unemployment, I looked at all the major expansion possibilities. And concluded the top options were:
1. NY
2. Charlotte
3. Montreal
4. San Antonio
5. Monterrey
6. Hartford (Other NE city)
7. Memphis
8. Vancouver OR
9. Portland
10. Las Vegas
or something like that....
Charlotte gets tossed around a lot, but I don't see it being a viable option.
Cool. There is a question about the baseball preference in the Piedmont area. It very likely wouldn't work out.
It's just too bad MLB effed with Montreal. An expansion rather than relocation into Washington would have been excellent.
MLB has most certainly shot itself in the foot repeatedly when it comes to baseball in Canada. Had the league expanded into the District, Vancouver would have been a wonderful natural rival for Seattle.
However, if baseball had expanded instead of moving the Expos, I would have hoped one team would have wound up in New York. Expansion in New York and Washington would have simply increased the number of teams in the East, which is hardly optimal.
Late '90s Carl Pohlad is very interested in your ideas about Charlotte.
The metro does have a population of 2.3M with the Carolinas having a population of 14 M. Charlotte having 8 fortune 500 companies with the rest of the Carolinas having another 8. And based on my small sample, the Carolinians I know aren't Braves fans, nor Nationals fans.
The factors are there, but would they ACTUALLY support them? I can't know.
The Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro Metropolitan Statistical Area ranks 23rd largest in the country at 2.226 million. It is the largest MSA without a MLB team (unless you count Riverside-San Bernadino-Ontario, at 4.2 million, but that's Angels territory, I think).
Sacramento-Arden-Arcade-Roseville is the next largest without a team (24th, 2.149 million), followed by San Antonio (2.142 million), 4 MLB markets, then Las Vegas (1.951 million), San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, Columbus OH, THEN you finally get to Charlotte.
I'd think that Columbus would be a better choice than Charlotte, and that Sacramento might be the best choice of any of these. The River Cats led all of minor league baseball in attendance every year during 2000-2008 and finished second in 2009 to...wait for it...Columbus!!!
Yeah, but the population of the rest of Oregon is something like 1.5 M. With the Rangers recently, we have learned that just as important as attendance, is the TV contract. A Portland team would be broadcast to something like 5 M people. A Charlotte team would broadcast to something over 10 M.
And a Columbus team seems like a bad idea. A third team in Ohio? Indianapolis would probably be the next in line in the Midwest, but I think the Midwest is over-saturated as is.
Monterrey would be cool, but they have pretty serious political issues going down at the moment.
Yep. Hopefully Mexico regains control of its internal security soon, but even so, I'm not sure how the economics would work given how weak the peso is compared to the dollar even while the US is in such a deep recession.
I think keeping money out of the drug cartels could have a huge potential boost to Mexico's economy. Organized crime there is crazy. Apparently the cartels are so effective at selling bootleg DVDs that many media companies won't even attempt to sell legit copies in some Central American countries. Even just having so many people outright dying at the hands of drug cartels is a huge economic problem in addition to fundamentally being a tragic situation.
I typed "Austin" but I think I meant San Antonio.
[Next time I'll remember my TX geography.]
Montreal. Loria did everything he could to get baseball out of Montreal. They drew fine when the team was playing well, I think they would draw again with an owner who was willing to promote the team in English and French. They also never really got a chance to grow a rivalry with Toronto. Re-align by region and put the Blue Jays and Expos in the same division. Also, for all the hassle of getting the appropriate work permits for a team to play in Canada and go through customs, they could play both Canadian teams on one road trip.
The mere thought of teams in Montreal and Havana makes me smile.
I think I'm in favor of eliminating AL NL altogether (eliminating the DH) and realigning strictly by geography. Even if it stands no chance of happening.
Right, the scheme is a nearly total pipe dream, but I love the idea. The only reason it stands any kind of chance is because there is a lot of potential ad revenue to be had in having more games during prime time. There are also other ways you can earn more money and cut costs by aligning geographically. Interleague play may also have owners a little more than curious about expanding the intracity match-ups.
I think that if you did geographic realignment, initially you would let teams set their own DH rule at home to phase it out, and then set a date, say, 10 years from now, where everyone would have had to phase out to fit with everyone else. DH or no DH, I am pretty agnostic, but I don't like having it split AL/NL.
initially you would let teams set their own DH rule at home
by game would be cool. "You gonna DH Big Papi while we DH Jason Tyner? Sorry, but I think we will choose to have pitchers bat tonight." "Thome is available and there's a righty starting for them? Game on!"
I would personally get a kick out of that. I think it would also tend to encourage teams to put players who can fill multiple roles on the roster, which is something I'd like to see more of.
The only thing I don't like about the geographical realignment is the Twins get a short end and end up in a division with KC, Tex, and Hou. Or if an eight team division, TB, Mia, Atl, and Charlotte. Or what have you, based on expansion possibilities.
The Twins are gonna get the short end of just about ANY geographical realignment, thanks to their geographic remoteness.
Damn you geography. I never liked you.
I think the Twins actually have a fair bit to gain from geographical realignment. At the moment, the Twins' closest divisional opponents are the White Sox and Royals. And it's not too bad to make weekend trips to Chicago and KC. Adding the Brewers, Cubs, and Cards to the Twins' division would bring that total from two to five. If you played, say, 12 games against division opponents, that's 30 potential road games that you might be able to road trip to. (And if high-speed rail ever happened between Minneapolis and Chicago, it'd be that much easier.)
Also, kicking out New York and Boston is potentially a huge deal. Last I checked (a couple years ago), NL attendance was better than AL attendance and the farther removed teams are from playing the Yankees, the better their attendance is.
I'm afraid realignment will end up like the NHL or NBA, where the MN team is put with a lot of Mountain and Pacific teams.
I agree that it would be a mistake to put Minnesota in a division with all teams from different time zones, whether ET, MT, or PT.
What's wrong with KC, Texas, and Houston? KC's already in their division so at worst that's a lateral move, and it's not a bad road trip to make it down there and take in a game at a decent stadium. Texas (the state) is Texas and views on it tend to be polarizing, but especially in a league without the Yankees, I think they will draw well and field entertaining teams.
Nothing against those three teams. More in losing the meaningful rivalries the Twins have formed with Chicago and Detroit. I really like the Rangers and Dallas, so would enjoy battling them.
The Twins wouldn't lose the White Sox as an opponent if there was a Central Time Zone division as I proposed. Detroit would be a loss, but I think it would be worth it for them to be with these teams. Having seven teams in one division within a 9-hour drive would also be really great.
it's not a bad road trip to make it down there and take in a game at a decent stadium
This argument reminds me of a claim the University of Nebraska once made to be "conveniently" located "near" many major metropolitan areas in the midwest, like Minneapolis, STL, Oklahoma City and Dallas. Uh huh.
Mebbe I am old, but I don't really think of a 4-5-or-11-hour drive as "not a bad road trip to ... take in a game." That is a "vacation", not a road trip. 😉
You are old. 😉
My main point is more that it gives enterprising fans more options than they have now. Also, you are correct in characterizing them more as vacations than day trips, but with 12 total games against each team, there would be two vacation opportunities for each of five opponents, spread over an entire season, which gives you more opportunities for fans to take baseball vacations.
Eventually when Duluth, Mankato, Rochester, Sioux Falls, Fargo, and Madison get their acts together, there will be even more options for Minnesotans to make a road trip for major league baseball. 🙂
Texas (the state) is Texas
No truer words have been spokes.
It would be dumb for the Twins to be in the same division as four teams from the Eastern time zone. Screw Bowden.
Dave Allen looks at how competitive no divisions would be. Short answers: yay for AL and boo for NL.
Congrats FT"h"LT, as of the writing of this comment, half (102) of the comments in this Cup of Coffee are part of this thread. At least it stayed together.
heh, i was going to congratulate him on his successful separate post. but you're right, at least it stayed together.
It was a comment grab.
Bobby Kielty has made 2 different relief appearances in AAA for a total of 1.2 IP.
Generated 6/13/2011.
He strikes out twice as many as he walks.
Does he throw with both hands?
Headline in the Sacbee sports section this morning: Mavs take talents to South Beach, win title
WGOM Headline:
Corey Brewer, NBA Champion!
Brian Cardinal, NBA Champion!
two more, and he will be a HOFer!
I am doing some research here to find the answer but maybe someone can help me. What was the last team to win the NBA title with it being the first title for every member of the team (coach's excluded)?
Crap. It is easier than I thought. Either way, good trivia question.
The first one?
I've found two in the past thirty years (not counting Dallas).
Did the 1991 Bulls have anyone?
They did not. There is one team more recent though. I actually just found a third team, the '83 76ers were all first time NBA champs as well.
First Spurs' championship?
Stupid Steve Kerr.
2004 Pistons?
You got it. I thought Elden Campbell was on the '99 Lakers, which he was, until he was traded in March-- so no title until 2004 for Elden and the correct answer is the Pistons.
On the morning of June 13, 2006, the Twins were 12 games back in the division and 10 1/2 back of the White Sox, who were leading the wild card standings, so the Twins are in a better position for a playoff spot now than they were five years ago. I don't think most fans appreciate how great a comeback that was to win that division, but that's mainly because the Twins had the wild card wrapped up in mid-September. I can't imagine the Twins having any shot at the wild card this year.
I only consider it the greatest Twins regular season ever.
It was certainly an epic season at the WGOM.
That game was the best 21st birthday present anyone could ask for. Also, my wife's first thought about that game was how much TwinGo sucked that day.
I was at that game - maybe the best regular season game I've ever attended: Johan v. Schilling, walkoff GS fro Kubel, and released Tony Batista after the game. Good times.
This is pretty awesome: the Minneapolis Park Board Moive in the Park tonight is Game 7 of the 1987 World Series.
I won't be going tonight, but the 1991 WS showings and The Princess Bride (obviously) might draw me in later this summer.
Everyone loves a happy ending.
The first couple of bars of "Float On" and "Party in the USA" sound way too similar.
I have noticed that.
Good, so it's not just me.
You think they're close, listen to Lupe Fiasco's "The Show Goes on".
Yeah, but that actually samples Modest Mouse, albeit sped up quite a bit.
Twinkie Town brings up the Twins having to make a couple of choices with regards to the 40 man roster when Nishi and Mauer come up this week (fingers crossed).Dusty Hughes and one of the catchers makes sense, right? I don't see Gardy/Smith giving up on Hoey already after having to give up Hardy.
Dusty Hughes & Eric Hacker are the first two I'd cut from the 40 man. I'd try to trade Butters for anything and cut him loose if nothing was available. Repko wouldn't be a huge loss, and I assume Slowey will be traded for a package of AA relievers who won't have to be added to the 40 man, so that's a couple more slots if needed.
Dinkelman is a sure bet to be outrighted. The second one is a bit harder. I think either Eric Hacker or Dusty Hughes. However, both Nishioka and Mauer are position players, so "losing" one of those two relievers might not happen.
I guess we just have to accept the whole three catcher thing then, huh? I guess it makes sense with Mauer coming back from injury but I don't like it. Especially when neither Butera or Rivera can hit the ball all that well.
Butera has options, so he'll remain on the 40-man but be sent down to Rochester. I think
the TwinsGardy wants Butera to stay, but the Twins so hate losing players on waivers that the safe option is to option Butera. The remind me of myself several years ago playing RPGs. I hated using items because then they would be "lost". Then I realized I was being stupid.the Twins so hate losing players on waivers that the safe option is to option Butera.
except when they don't hate losing them (see Neshek, Pat; Delaney, Rob).
Craig Breslow
btw, since being sent down after his 3 walks in 3 BF debacle of May 15, Delaney has faced 52 AAA batters in 11 1/3 innings, giving up 6 runs on 13 hits and 6 BBs (2 IBB), striking out 9.
On another ex-Twin note, Willie (The Original Groundskeeper) Eyre was named PCL Pitcher of the Week for the week of May 30-June 5. On the season with the Sacramento River Cats, Eyre has a 1.77 ERA, 3.08 FIP, .195 BAA, 35:13 K:BB in 40 2/3 innings (3-2 with six saves). At age 32, his clock may be running out for another shot at the Bigs, but at least he's doing everything he can to earn another cup of coffee or two.
But how can you have a perfect game if you don't collect every single item after getting to level 99 with everybody?
We need Corky Miller!
We miss Henry Blanco's bat (sadly, we kind of miss Henry Blanco's bat).
Holm has already been removed from the 40-man, so if Rivera is taken off, that would leave Mauer and Butera as the only catchers on the 40-man. I don't see the Twins doing that at all. They also made it clear that they didn't like what Holm did, so they wouldn't want to risk losing Rivera. Plus, while Rivera has been bad offensively, Butera has been epically bad, enough that Rivera is a pretty significant improvement, about 25 points in OPS+.
This is currently happening right over my office. I hope it clears out by 3:45 so I can get home and not have to wait 45 minutes for mo chailín to come get me when she's off at 4:30.
And there was a lightning strike with <2 seconds to the thunder, so less than ~1/2 mile away.
Seriously, how big of a fan can you be if you only go to a game every 75 years?
This made me giggle just a little bit.
After I get out there, I'll have to get to a game before they cease to exist...
Or move back to Brooklyn.
Oops!
I will always think of the failed right to left reading program when seeing this picture.
Me too, now.
NAMURT STAEFED YEWED ?
check out the link to the holmes article at the bottom of the column if you haven't had your fill of lebron schadenfreude yet.
Denard Span: the most underrated player in baseball.
And GoGo the third least underrated.
No, that's CarGo, aka Carlos Gonzalez, Spooky's old minor league buddy and current Colorado Rockie. Never a member of the Twins.
Also, the sole reason I've become a Rockies fan after years of not feeling anything either way for them.
speaking of CarGo, the SacBee seems ever so slowly to be shifting into "It's Billy Beane's fault" mode. Recall that Gonzalez, Nick Swisher and Andre Ethier all were River Cats before being traded. The yield on those trades has been...unimpressive.
Those are all Beane-type players, too. Surprising they'd all be jettisoned.
I was pretty annoyed when the D-Back organization let CarGo go, and once they traded Mark Reynolds, everyone I knew from the Bears was out of the organization. It just doesn't seem like it was very long ago.
the Ethier trade was, I thought, particularly egregious at the time. Traded to the Dodgers in winter 2005 (prior to his age 24 season) for Gameboard and futility infielder Antonio Perez.
Ethier built a 315/388/459 minor league line over 1,400 PA. As a rookie, he put up 2.1 rWAR for the Dodgers (308/365/477).
Bradley, meanwhile, was coming off a somewhat turbulent 2-year stretch for the Dodgers in which he hit 275/358/446 and played in only 216 games. In Oakland, 279/371/447 over only 115 games in a little over a season before he was shipped off to San Diego for never-quite-made-it reliever Andrew Brown.
Swisher's yield was much, much better: middle-of-the-rotation guy Gio Gonzalez and oft-injured but talented Ryan Sweeney, plus a hard-throwing reliever prospect (Fautino De Los Santos).
CarGo was a toolsy 22-year coming off a mediocre rookie half-season when he was shipped out with closer Huston Street and young lefty starter Greg Smith for a Matt Holiday rental.
Of those three, I'd say only the Swisher trade paid for itself. The other two were significant busts for the A's.
The Swisher trade probably turned out okay. Swisher stopped being a serf right after that, and Gio Gonzalez at least has turned into a pretty good (and still pretty cheap) starter. The other two...gross.
I think we need trade trees of them.
Yep. Skimmed that list of names too fast. I feel vaguely racist.
This was tweeted today:
The Inverted W goes mainstream.
Ok, mebbe the Atlantic is more "elitist" than "mainstream." But you get my drift.
Annnnd gets it half right. My understanding is not that it's bad to have the arms in that position, but bad to have them in that position when planting the front foot. The author wondering aloud about if Strasburg had the same motion in college or the minors or if it was a recent development is just lazy writing. Strasburg was one of the most analyzed and deconstructed pitchers ever. Even while in college, people assembled slow motion gifs to investigate how he did what he did.
Yes, but now the inverted W can become a point of discussion at fancy cocktail parties in Manhattan and Philadelphia.
Tonight I'm heading down to pick up a brewing starter kit my parents got me for my birthday, so soon I'll join the ranks of proud WGOM brewers. Anybody have any tips for someone who knows very little about home brewing?
Don't fear the foam /starsan
Agreed. The only bad batch I've had thus far seemed to stem from shoddy sterilization.
This. Cleanliness can't be stressed enough. Clean your kitchen before you begin, use starsan (really, don't use anything else) for sanitation, and don't worry too much. Welcome to a hobby that will kill brain cells and drain your wallet.
Welcome to a hobby that will kill brain cells and drain your wallet.
Sounds exactly like parenting a teenager.
Welcome to a hobby that will kill brain cells and drain your wallet.
Rob took up oil painting?
Oh no, I'm doomed then.
I know little of home brewing. But I did learn from Brew-on-Premises work that the bottle yield rarely matches expectations.
I suppose that could be related somehow to the "quality control" sampling that often happened as we were bottling.
I'm willing to act as QC for Rob or any other home brewer. It's just the right thing to do.
I've gotten pretty good at achieving 5 gallons full at bottling time. Depending on recipe, I usually ferment 5 3/4 gallon which allows for testing, sampling, yeast sludge, and waste.
Yeah, what meat said. Its all about learning your equipment when it comes to efficiencies and volumes.
Is this some sort of legal loop hole to get out of drunk driving arrest that I had never heard of? I guess not.
Not terribly shocking that he was partying in Niagara Falls.
He was a lawyer!
The Orioles look to do what I really wish the Twins had done last off-season.
How many millions of dollars will this cost Mickey D's?
this is the kind of scurrilous vandalism that causes riots and gets innocent people killed. Sadly, the U.S. is no more immune than other countries to information cascade-driven lunacy.
I saw that earlier. I wouldn't mind seeing the individual that started this slapped with a libel suit, though I don't think that's terribly likely, due to the difficulty in finding the miscreant.
due to the difficulty in finding the miscreant.
yeah, most likely they're... anonymous.
The Onion meets Facebook. My favorite ones were about The Onion's story of William and Kate divorcing.
heh, i saw this last week. i forget how i got to it. just genius.
Gleeman linked to it, if I'm not mistaken.
"Verification of info still pending!"
Why am I not surprised that it originated where it did?
Mauer reaches on an E-4 in the first inning for Ft. Myers, apparently running well, and comes around to score on a bases-loaded hbp.
They clearly play Twins Baseball down in Ft. Myers.
Mauer flies out to left field in the second inning.
Mauer lines a single to center field in the fourth inning with two outs and was stranded at first.
Four new headers have been added; render opinions if you have them.
Also, the Lexicon has been added to the top, and if you want to work on it, bug me here or email me (foreverunchanged gmail) so I can get you the necessary permissions if you don't have them already. It's html-intensive, but you'll be able to see the entries that are already there so it shouldn't be too bad.
personally, i think the new headers are great.
second, i'd recommend sticky-ing a post to the top of the front page eliciting suggestions for the lexicon over the next few days. i'm sure there's much more than any few of us could think up.
ZOMG, the mushroom cloud-halo for F-Bomb is spectacular.
Verily.
I think I'm rooting for the Bruins tonight to force a Game 7. Stanley Cup Game 7s are so much fun to watch.
Three quick goals for Boston and Luongo is on the bench early.
Holy mackrel, another goal as I type. 4-0 with 10min left in the 1st.
Take that, Whitecaps fans!
Final: Bruins 5-2.
So, with a 1-goal Canucks win in game 7, they could win the Stanley Cup despite being outscored 10 goals.
Dude, you're ruining tomorrow's Cup of Coffee post!
Jeter gets a hit, then leaves with injury. Lookin' good, Hitman.
Looking good, America.