I'm sure many of you saw this story about the Rangers game last night. Absolutely tragic. My heart goes out to his family, especially his young son who saw it happen.
Really sad. My curiosity got the better of me and I had to watch a replay. Thankfully the fall itself was shielded from view. The catch attempt really looked pretty routine, almost totally routine, and it didn't even seem like he reached very far over the railing, he just got caught a little off balance, the fence was a little on the short side for his height, and there wasn't really anywhere for him to grab when he lost his balance. Seems like a pretty freak accident.
That is the THIRD fall there, though, so not that freak of an accident.
I think it was a pretty freak accident for that guy in that situation, especially his death considering that he was talking on the way out of the stadium. Others may have been worse, I haven't seen them, and I would argue there's a good case for improving safety in that area of the park, but I think that guy would have kept his feet and still caught the ball much more often than not if you gave him the same situation to do over.
I wouldn't describe a death as freak simply because the individual who sustained head trauma was initially responsive, then died. For example, a guy fell from a shorter distance at Miller Park last year, was taken to the hospital while conscious and responsive, and died some time afterward from a brain hemorrhage sustained in the fall.
the fall was a freak accident, even if the result was not exactly unprecedented.
i had heard about this, but little else. i didn't know about hamilton's involvement. ouch. that's got to be horrible for him as well as the family.
I really hope somebody had the presence of mind to shield the boy from the scene below. I would hate for that to be the last thing he remembers of his dad.
This got me thinking about the right field cheap seats at the Metrodome. To my knowledge no one ever fell from there to the 60 some feet to the field. The reason was simple. They had a high bar angled in at a 45 degrees nearly the whole way around. At these newish ballparks they simply traded safety for clear line of sights and aesthetics.
It's a simple design flaw and MLB really needs to implement a standard for these railings league-wide.
Right. You were basically kept three feet from the edge at all times. The Arlington Ballpark should have at least had some netting over that gap. I feel that's an inexcusable design flaw.
I just watched the clip. I wasn't that bothered by the situation until I watched it. If I had front-row seats with my kid, I would have very easily done the same thing. I’m just imagining my 5yo son watching me die like that, trying to get him a foul ball, like the one a stranger got for his sister a few years ago. I reach, I fall, and he's there all alone wondering what happened and then he finds out I'm dead.
the system is over-determined. How do we know that it wasn't the move to first base??!!!
Pretty arbitrary if you ask me.
It's good to know your role, isn't it?
/But what would Chuck James hit as First Baseman?
LEW!!
/What happened? I blacked out.
with the loss last night, the Sox record against the AL Central is 7-14. ouch.
Baseball America released their midseason Top-50 prospect list. Two Twins prospects made the cut. Comparing to the preseason Top 100, Aaron Hicks jumps from his preseason ranking of #45 to #24. Kyle Gibson meanwhile drops two spots, moving from #34 before the season to #36 now.
Yes, Mike Trout at #2. I've got next years ROY locked up in the Half-Bakef league for peanuts.
He debuts tonight!
Salmon? Trout? My goodness!
Can't be next year's ROY if he plays even half-time the rest of this season.
I didn't know he was getting called up. Then I guess I have this year's ROY.
None of the games with the White Sox this series are on WGN, so I don't get to see any of them. Though I do get to avoid having Hawk on my TV.
Finally got my TJ database working again.
-Two years ago, he basically wrote a column explaining that Joe Nathan was Mariano Rivera's equal. Sigh. Pretty decent article and the only clunker phrase was: "Nathan has pumped life into late nights at the dumpy Metrodome while Rivera has turned out the lights at Yankee Stadium."
-It was four years ago last Wednesday that JI JIM's broken bat snapped around and cracked open Mike Redmond's head. Ouch. Gotta enjoy this: "About 17 hours after having his scalp knitted, Redmond stuck extra padding in his helmet, borrowed a skull cap from the White Sox, blacked out the Sox logo and caught nine innings while becoming the first Twin in memory to wear a do-rag. 'I'm calling him `Gangsta Mike' from now on,' Torii Hunter said."
"Asked if New Ulm native and noted fashionista Terry Steinbach (I guarantee he's wearing flannel right now) ever wore a do-rag, Gardenhire said: 'Oh, please write that. You can even put my name on that quote. Terry Steinbach wore a do-rag. He sees that, I'll be getting a call before he finishes the sentence.'"
"Michael Cuddyer even says Redmond - not Justin Morneau, Joe Mauer or Johan Santana - was the team MVP last year [in 2006], because Redmond kept the clubhouse loose and intense and urged teammates to play with pain."
-From the "It's hard to believe how bad things used to be" file, TJ wrote on this day 12 years ago about WASTE being named to the All Star team and first round pick B.J. Garbe signing his contract with the Twins. Oh, and in the actual game "[Joe] Mays had come close to beaning [Manny] Ramirez in the first inning, on a 3-and-1 fastball that seemed to slip out of his hand. In the sixth, with one on, one out and an 0-and-1 count, Mays threw a fastball that tailed up and in but didn't come close to hitting Ramirez. Ramirez wagged his right index finger, began stalking toward the mound and then began to charge as Twins catcher Javier Valentin restrained him." It's not like that ever happened again.
-In 1998 Red McCombs had his introductory press conference as Vikings owner. TJ noted, "Never before had an owner, during his first day in control of an NFL franchise, mentioned purple buttermilk and 'purple pride,' expressed support for a coach he called 'naive,' set his sights on the Super Bowl, and advised, 'Don't squat with your spurs on.'"
-Now, this isn't quite a TJ story but I discovered it through his recap from 15 years ago. Fifteen years ago yesterday, Scott Aldred got shelled by the Royals. In the top of the first inning he allowed a three-run homerun to Kevin Young. This homerun is only memorable for one reason. My family had partial season tickets to games back then and our seats were behind homeplate. I watched a few hundred games from back there and was completely used to that view. I also learned how to score a game when I was four and would keep score at every game (still do). Well, on this date my uncle and cousin were in town visiting so we brought them with us to the game. Because we had one more person than ticket, I agreed to go sit in the outfield.
I was keeping score while sitting in one of the first few rows in left field when Young cracked his homerun. I was not used to the view of the ball from that area, so I did not realize it was coming directly towards me. Only at the last moment, I discovered I was in its path but I had a pen in one hand and my scorebook in the other. I leaned out of the way only to have the ball ricochet (how's that Dazzle!) off my leg and back onto the field. I had a nice little red mark on my leg from the contact. Of course, my father realized that was near where I was sitting so he sent one of my brothers out to see what happened. I stupidly told him the truth rather than simply say the ball was not near me. My brother relayed that message back to my father, cousin and uncle. This being 1996, my father then went and found a payphone in the Metrodome concourse. He told my mother about my incident. She then proceeded to tape the news highlights from the local news and Sportscenter, so they had a loop of me jumping out of the way while getting nailed with a baseball. I wonder where that VHS is now.
I'd pay good money to see a Wee Dread Pirate jumping out of the way of a HR.
on the bright side, he had no need to throw the ball back onto the field.
Raul Mondesi hit a homer that bounced up and knocked my beer out of my hand as I got back to my seat. I couldn't get the ball, but as my beer came down, I caught it. Somehow, this was never caught on the highlights. I still regret that.
Frank Thomas hit a monster shot that landed a row in front of me (in the cheap seats in left) at the Dome. It was originally ruled a HR, but the guy a seat up caught it without dropping it was 2 seats foul. Gardy went out to argue based on the guy holding the ball, the entire section made the "foul" gesture, and the umps actually changed the ruling on the field based on that.
Definitely was an awesome moment in the Dome.
THAT is a cool anecdote.
The best (or maybe worst) part is that he was actually booed right after he caught it because he wouldn't throw it back.
Definitely worst. People who throw home run balls back should be immediately ejected from every game they ever plan on attending the rest of their life.
I think they should just be forced to root for the Cubs.
That seems fair.
you cruel hearted b@st@rd!
Yea, I find that the second most annoying thing imaginable at a ballgame (any guesses on no. 1). The "best" comment was solely on the stupidity of it all. I really also hope that some people there that booed might have thought about it next time a HR was hit.
my guess: Jose Valverde?
#1 = The Wave?
You betha. Sit down, you gosh darn hippies!
I'm pretty sure the hippies wouldn't bother to stand up. The Wave is more for the kids, the casuals and the drunks.
Not the beach ball?
or the female exhibitionism? Ok, not that.
The beach ball was my first guess, but I quickly changed to the Wave, assuming Rob and I were on the same wavelength. Thing is, the beach ball may or may not be anywhere near you. There is no escaping the Wave.
I was just thinking last night, I hope TDP hasn't stopped the TJ retrospective. Glad that it led to a great family story of yours.
Sorry about the hiatus. My database was screwed up for the past week and was only giving me access to things I didn't want or need.
I did have the chance to watch a shuttle launch last year though. I was rather far away, but still worth it.
We're at T-9 minutes now.
T-2 min
Failure at t-0:31. On hold.
Back on.
Man, I get chills everytime I see a space launch. It's just so insane that they're putting acutal human into outer space. The shuttle is currently moving at 4 miles per second. Just mind boggling.
Sounds like him being a partner of Steinbrenner wasn't a fluke.
sweet. just got invited onto google+. i am infinitely cooler than all of you.
I got invited a couple of days ago, beeotch.
I still am in the dark 🙁
i'll offer up any invites that i may receive.
I am so low on the totem pole I don't even know what Google+ is.
I just got an invite. Perhaps a WGOM circle is in order.
That's my thought!
I created one, but is that something only I can see?
I think it is. If you were to add us, we'd get your profile and we could put you into whatever group we wanted.
I am in as well. I was thinking it would be fun to have a WGOM circle. Feel free to add me anyone! zmoney (at) Google's email service.
I'm not seeing you in the search. Is your profile public?
Hmmm. That's a good question! I'll have to check how I set that when I get home. I thought I made myself public.
I was invited the very first day. Although the invite never came.. But I really was invited!!
Greetings from Avon, Colorado. We drove yesterday from Maple Grove to Avon. It took us close to 18 hours (including stops along the way). Ran into a rainstorm an hour outside of Denver and drove through heavy rain between Denver and Vail in the dark. That was not fun. I was gripping the wheel so hard my left shoulder was killing me when we got here. Fortunately, it's feeling better now and I was able to get some sleep, unlike when we tried to stay at Brian Head, Utah. So, apparently I'm OK up to 8,000 feet. I was very thankful for XM radio in my car so I could listen to the Twins' win. That was fun listening to the White Sox feed.
I hope you had a chance to read the gamelog, socal. It was pretty entertaining.
MG to Avon, CO? One hell of a one-day haul.
I wasn't able to watch the game myself, but it sounds like Mauer is a regular Mientkiewicz at 1B. Now I want to see what he could do at 2B, SS, CF, etc.
Mostly, I just wanted to be able to spell Mientkiewicz from memory again.
I don't doubt that Joe's got some mighty soft hands. Mostly he'll just have to get his first baseman instincts built up re: interaction with the second baseman and pitcher, pickoff attempts, etc.
I'm still having difficulty coming to grips with this, even as a very occasional assignment. Asking Mauer to play first seems a bit like asking Duke Ellington to play the chicken dance.
As long as it's a max of 20-30 games (along with 20-30 games at DH) a season I think I'm okay with it. Especially once Morneau comes back, because I think it would be good for him to have a few more games at DH.
While I agree, we don't know if Mauer's knee surgery during the offseason was something minor or the beginning of the end for him catching. As much as I and Mauer may hope and wish it was the former, it might not be.
That could be, but it doesn't really seem like that's why they are making the move at this particular point in time. It just seems like caving to the media right now, and they all seem to think this is a great development when it is really a terrible downgrade in Mauer's value to the team if he is moving in this direction. Anyway, I've always thought that both first basemen and the chicken dance are overrated.
it was kind of like when Darin Erstad moved to first base. Yeah, he was a gold-glover there, but it made him mostly irrelevant as a player. If Mauer has to move at some point, third base is one place where he'd still have great value, if not as much as catcher. I don't mind him spelling people at first base, but a permanent move there would make him a mostly average player (barring any more 2009-esque seasons).
It fulfills 3 needs right now: 1)Having a first baseman than can pick the ball. 2) Allowing Joe to have his body recover somewhat from his injury while still playing every day 3) Allowing Thome to be DH every day.
All of these are compelling reasons to have Joe at first for the moment. Once Kubel comes back, though, I think Cuddy needs to rotate back to 1st and the Chairman needs to take his rightful place.
I'm not saying that there's no logic in Mauer playing first base at the moment, I'm mainly saying that it's awful that he's been reduced to that and I find it sad. And from the standpoint of someone who reads about the team, I hate that now his 1B vs. C splits are going to be brought up constantly, without any real context, even if he's 100% healthy but in a bit of a slump.
I'm hoping this is mostly an experiment, and not a look at the future. Plus, it's a nice nose-thumb at the ChiSox.
Those are great pics though. If they would end up with the nature-photography equivalent of a Pulitzer, who would get the prize?
Crashed on my couch around 9:30, which I think was right after the Twins took the lead (damn was that a slow game to whatever point it was when I fell asleep).
I just woke up and pulled up mlb.com for the highlights and I let it keep playing through to the Thursday night highlights. So I saw all of Mauer's assists and put-outs at 1B. Maybe I've never paid this kind of attention to 1B defense before, but it sure looks like he has a lot of catcher in him how he shows the 1B ump (Brian Gorman) that he has the ball after each put-out.
In Boston, Bosok Josh Reddick hits a one-out triple. Ortiz comes to bat and takes offense to Kevin Gregg pitching him way inside. After Ortiz flies out, Gregg taunts him a bit, and Ortiz charges the mound. Benches (and bullpens?) clear. After the dust settles and ejections are made, Showalter (correctly) appeals to the umps that Reddick abandoned his base during the kerfuffle* and therefore was out. I was very curious to see how it made the boxscore:
David Ortiz flies into double play, center fielder Adam Jones to catcher Matt Wieters. Josh Reddick out at home on the throw.
Was there an actual throw? Did Adam Jones get a free Outfield Assist? I know catchers get assigned all sorts of putouts, so that really doesn't bother me.
*barely a fight or a mêlée, more than a confrontation.
I'm sure many of you saw this story about the Rangers game last night. Absolutely tragic. My heart goes out to his family, especially his young son who saw it happen.
Really sad. My curiosity got the better of me and I had to watch a replay. Thankfully the fall itself was shielded from view. The catch attempt really looked pretty routine, almost totally routine, and it didn't even seem like he reached very far over the railing, he just got caught a little off balance, the fence was a little on the short side for his height, and there wasn't really anywhere for him to grab when he lost his balance. Seems like a pretty freak accident.
That is the THIRD fall there, though, so not that freak of an accident.
I think it was a pretty freak accident for that guy in that situation, especially his death considering that he was talking on the way out of the stadium. Others may have been worse, I haven't seen them, and I would argue there's a good case for improving safety in that area of the park, but I think that guy would have kept his feet and still caught the ball much more often than not if you gave him the same situation to do over.
I wouldn't describe a death as freak simply because the individual who sustained head trauma was initially responsive, then died. For example, a guy fell from a shorter distance at Miller Park last year, was taken to the hospital while conscious and responsive, and died some time afterward from a brain hemorrhage sustained in the fall.
the fall was a freak accident, even if the result was not exactly unprecedented.
i had heard about this, but little else. i didn't know about hamilton's involvement. ouch. that's got to be horrible for him as well as the family.
I really hope somebody had the presence of mind to shield the boy from the scene below. I would hate for that to be the last thing he remembers of his dad.
This got me thinking about the right field cheap seats at the Metrodome. To my knowledge no one ever fell from there to the 60 some feet to the field. The reason was simple. They had a high bar angled in at a 45 degrees nearly the whole way around. At these newish ballparks they simply traded safety for clear line of sights and aesthetics.
It's a simple design flaw and MLB really needs to implement a standard for these railings league-wide.
Right. You were basically kept three feet from the edge at all times. The Arlington Ballpark should have at least had some netting over that gap. I feel that's an inexcusable design flaw.
I just watched the clip. I wasn't that bothered by the situation until I watched it. If I had front-row seats with my kid, I would have very easily done the same thing. I’m just imagining my 5yo son watching me die like that, trying to get him a foul ball, like the one a stranger got for his sister a few years ago. I reach, I fall, and he's there all alone wondering what happened and then he finds out I'm dead.
I think we need more data.
Exactly. TK says 17 is good enough.
the system is over-determined. How do we know that it wasn't the move to first base??!!!
Pretty arbitrary if you ask me.
It's good to know your role, isn't it?
/But what would Chuck James hit as First Baseman?
LEW!!
/What happened? I blacked out.
with the loss last night, the Sox record against the AL Central is 7-14. ouch.
Baseball America released their midseason Top-50 prospect list. Two Twins prospects made the cut. Comparing to the preseason Top 100, Aaron Hicks jumps from his preseason ranking of #45 to #24. Kyle Gibson meanwhile drops two spots, moving from #34 before the season to #36 now.
Yes, Mike Trout at #2. I've got next years ROY locked up in the Half-Bakef league for peanuts.
He debuts tonight!
Salmon? Trout? My goodness!
Can't be next year's ROY if he plays even half-time the rest of this season.
I didn't know he was getting called up. Then I guess I have this year's ROY.
None of the games with the White Sox this series are on WGN, so I don't get to see any of them. Though I do get to avoid having Hawk on my TV.
Finally got my TJ database working again.
-Two years ago, he basically wrote a column explaining that Joe Nathan was Mariano Rivera's equal. Sigh. Pretty decent article and the only clunker phrase was: "Nathan has pumped life into late nights at the dumpy Metrodome while Rivera has turned out the lights at Yankee Stadium."
-It was four years ago last Wednesday that JI JIM's broken bat snapped around and cracked open Mike Redmond's head. Ouch. Gotta enjoy this: "About 17 hours after having his scalp knitted, Redmond stuck extra padding in his helmet, borrowed a skull cap from the White Sox, blacked out the Sox logo and caught nine innings while becoming the first Twin in memory to wear a do-rag. 'I'm calling him `Gangsta Mike' from now on,' Torii Hunter said."
"Asked if New Ulm native and noted fashionista Terry Steinbach (I guarantee he's wearing flannel right now) ever wore a do-rag, Gardenhire said: 'Oh, please write that. You can even put my name on that quote. Terry Steinbach wore a do-rag. He sees that, I'll be getting a call before he finishes the sentence.'"
"Michael Cuddyer even says Redmond - not Justin Morneau, Joe Mauer or Johan Santana - was the team MVP last year [in 2006], because Redmond kept the clubhouse loose and intense and urged teammates to play with pain."
-From the "It's hard to believe how bad things used to be" file, TJ wrote on this day 12 years ago about WASTE being named to the All Star team and first round pick B.J. Garbe signing his contract with the Twins. Oh, and in the actual game "[Joe] Mays had come close to beaning [Manny] Ramirez in the first inning, on a 3-and-1 fastball that seemed to slip out of his hand. In the sixth, with one on, one out and an 0-and-1 count, Mays threw a fastball that tailed up and in but didn't come close to hitting Ramirez. Ramirez wagged his right index finger, began stalking toward the mound and then began to charge as Twins catcher Javier Valentin restrained him." It's not like that ever happened again.
-In 1998 Red McCombs had his introductory press conference as Vikings owner. TJ noted, "Never before had an owner, during his first day in control of an NFL franchise, mentioned purple buttermilk and 'purple pride,' expressed support for a coach he called 'naive,' set his sights on the Super Bowl, and advised, 'Don't squat with your spurs on.'"
-Now, this isn't quite a TJ story but I discovered it through his recap from 15 years ago. Fifteen years ago yesterday, Scott Aldred got shelled by the Royals. In the top of the first inning he allowed a three-run homerun to Kevin Young. This homerun is only memorable for one reason. My family had partial season tickets to games back then and our seats were behind homeplate. I watched a few hundred games from back there and was completely used to that view. I also learned how to score a game when I was four and would keep score at every game (still do). Well, on this date my uncle and cousin were in town visiting so we brought them with us to the game. Because we had one more person than ticket, I agreed to go sit in the outfield.
I was keeping score while sitting in one of the first few rows in left field when Young cracked his homerun. I was not used to the view of the ball from that area, so I did not realize it was coming directly towards me. Only at the last moment, I discovered I was in its path but I had a pen in one hand and my scorebook in the other. I leaned out of the way only to have the ball ricochet (how's that Dazzle!) off my leg and back onto the field. I had a nice little red mark on my leg from the contact. Of course, my father realized that was near where I was sitting so he sent one of my brothers out to see what happened. I stupidly told him the truth rather than simply say the ball was not near me. My brother relayed that message back to my father, cousin and uncle. This being 1996, my father then went and found a payphone in the Metrodome concourse. He told my mother about my incident. She then proceeded to tape the news highlights from the local news and Sportscenter, so they had a loop of me jumping out of the way while getting nailed with a baseball. I wonder where that VHS is now.
I'd pay good money to see a Wee Dread Pirate jumping out of the way of a HR.
on the bright side, he had no need to throw the ball back onto the field.
Raul Mondesi hit a homer that bounced up and knocked my beer out of my hand as I got back to my seat. I couldn't get the ball, but as my beer came down, I caught it. Somehow, this was never caught on the highlights. I still regret that.
Frank Thomas hit a monster shot that landed a row in front of me (in the cheap seats in left) at the Dome. It was originally ruled a HR, but the guy a seat up caught it without dropping it was 2 seats foul. Gardy went out to argue based on the guy holding the ball, the entire section made the "foul" gesture, and the umps actually changed the ruling on the field based on that.
Definitely was an awesome moment in the Dome.
THAT is a cool anecdote.
The best (or maybe worst) part is that he was actually booed right after he caught it because he wouldn't throw it back.
Definitely worst. People who throw home run balls back should be immediately ejected from every game they ever plan on attending the rest of their life.
I think they should just be forced to root for the Cubs.
That seems fair.
you cruel hearted b@st@rd!
Yea, I find that the second most annoying thing imaginable at a ballgame (any guesses on no. 1). The "best" comment was solely on the stupidity of it all. I really also hope that some people there that booed might have thought about it next time a HR was hit.
my guess: Jose Valverde?
#1 = The Wave?
You betha. Sit down, you gosh darn hippies!
I'm pretty sure the hippies wouldn't bother to stand up. The Wave is more for the kids, the casuals and the drunks.
Not the beach ball?
or the female exhibitionism? Ok, not that.
The beach ball was my first guess, but I quickly changed to the Wave, assuming Rob and I were on the same wavelength. Thing is, the beach ball may or may not be anywhere near you. There is no escaping the Wave.
I was just thinking last night, I hope TDP hasn't stopped the TJ retrospective. Glad that it led to a great family story of yours.
Sorry about the hiatus. My database was screwed up for the past week and was only giving me access to things I didn't want or need.
Last ever shuttle launch is scheduled for 11:26:46 a.m Eastern, so 10:26:46 Central. You can watch it here: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/6540154
Stupid meetings.
I did have the chance to watch a shuttle launch last year though. I was rather far away, but still worth it.
We're at T-9 minutes now.
T-2 min
Failure at t-0:31. On hold.
Back on.
Man, I get chills everytime I see a space launch. It's just so insane that they're putting acutal human into outer space. The shuttle is currently moving at 4 miles per second. Just mind boggling.
A great write up about many fraudulent items in Cooperstown and how they got there.
That was a very good article.
Sounds like him being a partner of Steinbrenner wasn't a fluke.
sweet. just got invited onto google+. i am infinitely cooler than all of you.
I got invited a couple of days ago, beeotch.
I still am in the dark 🙁
i'll offer up any invites that i may receive.
I am so low on the totem pole I don't even know what Google+ is.
I just got an invite. Perhaps a WGOM circle is in order.
That's my thought!
I created one, but is that something only I can see?
I think it is. If you were to add us, we'd get your profile and we could put you into whatever group we wanted.
I am in as well. I was thinking it would be fun to have a WGOM circle. Feel free to add me anyone! zmoney (at) Google's email service.
I'm not seeing you in the search. Is your profile public?
Hmmm. That's a good question! I'll have to check how I set that when I get home. I thought I made myself public.
I was invited the very first day. Although the invite never came.. But I really was invited!!
Greetings from Avon, Colorado. We drove yesterday from Maple Grove to Avon. It took us close to 18 hours (including stops along the way). Ran into a rainstorm an hour outside of Denver and drove through heavy rain between Denver and Vail in the dark. That was not fun. I was gripping the wheel so hard my left shoulder was killing me when we got here. Fortunately, it's feeling better now and I was able to get some sleep, unlike when we tried to stay at Brian Head, Utah. So, apparently I'm OK up to 8,000 feet. I was very thankful for XM radio in my car so I could listen to the Twins' win. That was fun listening to the White Sox feed.
I hope you had a chance to read the gamelog, socal. It was pretty entertaining.
MG to Avon, CO? One hell of a one-day haul.
I wasn't able to watch the game myself, but it sounds like Mauer is a regular Mientkiewicz at 1B. Now I want to see what he could do at 2B, SS, CF, etc.
Mostly, I just wanted to be able to spell Mientkiewicz from memory again.
I don't doubt that Joe's got some mighty soft hands. Mostly he'll just have to get his first baseman instincts built up re: interaction with the second baseman and pitcher, pickoff attempts, etc.
I'm still having difficulty coming to grips with this, even as a very occasional assignment. Asking Mauer to play first seems a bit like asking Duke Ellington to play the chicken dance.
As long as it's a max of 20-30 games (along with 20-30 games at DH) a season I think I'm okay with it. Especially once Morneau comes back, because I think it would be good for him to have a few more games at DH.
While I agree, we don't know if Mauer's knee surgery during the offseason was something minor or the beginning of the end for him catching. As much as I and Mauer may hope and wish it was the former, it might not be.
That could be, but it doesn't really seem like that's why they are making the move at this particular point in time. It just seems like caving to the media right now, and they all seem to think this is a great development when it is really a terrible downgrade in Mauer's value to the team if he is moving in this direction. Anyway, I've always thought that both first basemen and the chicken dance are overrated.
it was kind of like when Darin Erstad moved to first base. Yeah, he was a gold-glover there, but it made him mostly irrelevant as a player. If Mauer has to move at some point, third base is one place where he'd still have great value, if not as much as catcher. I don't mind him spelling people at first base, but a permanent move there would make him a mostly average player (barring any more 2009-esque seasons).
It fulfills 3 needs right now: 1)Having a first baseman than can pick the ball. 2) Allowing Joe to have his body recover somewhat from his injury while still playing every day 3) Allowing Thome to be DH every day.
All of these are compelling reasons to have Joe at first for the moment. Once Kubel comes back, though, I think Cuddy needs to rotate back to 1st and the Chairman needs to take his rightful place.
I'm not saying that there's no logic in Mauer playing first base at the moment, I'm mainly saying that it's awful that he's been reduced to that and I find it sad. And from the standpoint of someone who reads about the team, I hate that now his 1B vs. C splits are going to be brought up constantly, without any real context, even if he's 100% healthy but in a bit of a slump.
I'm hoping this is mostly an experiment, and not a look at the future. Plus, it's a nice nose-thumb at the ChiSox.
he's a tribute to the joy of phonetics
It looks as though the All-Star game will be canceled this year.
I'm going to have to totally redo my game log now!!
Making a monkey out of copyright law.
Those are great pics though. If they would end up with the nature-photography equivalent of a Pulitzer, who would get the prize?
Crashed on my couch around 9:30, which I think was right after the Twins took the lead (damn was that a slow game to whatever point it was when I fell asleep).
I just woke up and pulled up mlb.com for the highlights and I let it keep playing through to the Thursday night highlights. So I saw all of Mauer's assists and put-outs at 1B. Maybe I've never paid this kind of attention to 1B defense before, but it sure looks like he has a lot of catcher in him how he shows the 1B ump (Brian Gorman) that he has the ball after each put-out.
In Boston, Bosok Josh Reddick hits a one-out triple. Ortiz comes to bat and takes offense to Kevin Gregg pitching him way inside. After Ortiz flies out, Gregg taunts him a bit, and Ortiz charges the mound. Benches (and bullpens?) clear. After the dust settles and ejections are made, Showalter (correctly) appeals to the umps that Reddick abandoned his base during the kerfuffle* and therefore was out. I was very curious to see how it made the boxscore:
Was there an actual throw? Did Adam Jones get a free Outfield Assist? I know catchers get assigned all sorts of putouts, so that really doesn't bother me.
*barely a fight or a mêlée, more than a confrontation.
(I reposted both of these in today's cup.)