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Posted on 09/29/2015 10:16:41 AM PDT by BluesDuke
A good show to see the class acts in baseball is Intentional Talk on MLB network. For the most part they interview the funny and classier players. Making fun of Millar is always a plus too.
I’m glad to see that Miggy hasn’t become a repeat offender since his DUI bust in Florida back in 2011.
“He blew them to trinkets, bric-a-brac ...”
I haven’t heard that usage in 45 years. I remember a long-forgotten 1930s thoroughbred sire, Blow Me, showing up infrequently in pedigrees when I started in the early 1970s.
Sam McCracken, the great turf writer from the Boston Globe, explained that was a common way of saying that you were “treating” someone, for free, to lunch, ball game tickets, a $2 daily double bet, etc.
The sexual connection eclipsed the treat meaning in the years after World War II. I’ve never heard it in use and I’m almost 70 years old.
I'm sure the details of the story got misreported. But the article said a 'short pop to center field'. Things that make you say, "Huh?"
The line "One fine day he lofts a short pop to center field that falls in for a base hit" could surely mean the center fielder was playing him deep and got caught unawares and a little hustle by Yogi could have made it a close play at second. It just reads odd...because an alert CF would be charging that ball and would come up throwing.
This is a medium volume ping list during the baseball season and a low volume ping list when all life stops in late October.
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Yeah Miggy said he took a long hard look at his life and decided that he needed to get closer to God.
And that makes me feel better about the Tigers’ W-L record this year! /s
I agree with the article overall, but I take exception to this/ Harper was on first when the ball was caught. The chance os that ball being caught were 100% but Bryce still ran it out and got to first before the ball was caught.
I never want to see Papelbon in a Nats unform again. It's not his fault that Rizzo brought him in and destroyed Drew Storen's outstanding season, but he's still that guy. I can't believe that with all that...without ever having swung a bat in his MLB career...he thought he HAD to take it upon his shoulders to teach the 'kid' how baseball should be played. The 'kid', who happens to be a four year verteran and who is most likely the league's MVP and who has played nearly every damn game this season on a team that has only fielded it's Opening Day lineup, twice, all season.
Even an alert center fielder might not catch that ball if he was playing back just far enough.
I wasn’t questioning Harper at all. I know he reached first. And what you said about Papelbon not being a hitter but telling a hitter how to play knits to what Mark DeRosa says.
It also really frosts me that, even though yesterday was a scheduled day off for Bryce, Williams and Rizzo had to make a point of saying he was sitting out because he played a part in the incident. That's a crock.
I got news for them. I drive to about a dozen games a season from VA Beach. This year the only reason I was willing to make the trip was to see Harper play...and there were plenty in the stands with me who felt the same way...atleast during the second half of the season.
It also really frosts me that, even though yesterday was a scheduled day off for Bryce, Williams and Rizzo had to make a point of saying he was sitting out because he played a part in the incident. That's a crock.Matt Williams has been to the Washington Nationals what a case of hiccups is to a glass blower.
But I think GM Mike Rizzo needs to own a big part of this. Where on earth did he get the midseason idea that a Nats club that needed a little offensive help and some experienced middle relief help could solve both those problems by bringing in . . . a closer they didn't need when their incumbent was as close to lights out as possible before the Papelbon deal was made?
And just how far up his rear end did Rizzo have his head when he continued praising Williams's "brilliance" after just about ever in-game hiccup Williams suffered?
How "brilliant" can a manager be who:
* Doesn't re-align his rotation so that Max Scherzer faces the pesky oncoming Mets? (In the two key series with the Mets in August that helped turn the race around, the Mets never faced Scherzer. Not even once.)If that's brilliance, I'm the Venus de Milo.* During the second key set with the Mets, neither Papelbon nor Drew Storen---demoted to setup with Papelbon's arrival---threw a single pitch in those games, all of which ended up close and two of which the Mets won by a single run.
* Refuses to use Papelbon in a non-save situation---while the Nats blow two late-inning leads against the Cardinals as a result.
* Lifts Stephen Strasburg on a night he's dominating the Mets, bringing in Storen---who was struggling by then in his new role, and who promptly got taken over the fence by Yoenis Cespedes who'd hit Storen for a bases-clearing double the day before.
* Orders Anthony Rendon, maybe his hottest hitter not named Harper at the time, to bunt against Mets closer Jeurys Familia with Jayson Werth on, nobody out, and Harper on deck---when everyone in the ballpark knew a) that Rendon is a terrible bunter; and, b) the Mets would put Harper on on the house if Rendon somehow did pull off the sacrifice.
Sure enough, Rendon failed to execute the sacrifice. And it took the bat out of Harper's hands, anyway: the Mets got nervy and put him on regardless. And, sure enough, got the game ending double play ball. How brilliant could Williams have been thinking he could leave the clutch hitting to lesser men? If Williams let Rendon hit away and Rendon got aboard, there's no way the Mets would have walked the bases loaded with nobody out and you'd have the probable National League MVP up to do your clutch hitting which is what you should want no questions asked.
And that was the game in which the Nats jumped all over Matt Harvey and took a 7-1 lead into the seventh inning, before the Nats' weaker bullpen coughed it up to 8-7, Mets.
Papelbon is a blowhard loudmouth always complaining about how nobody but himself wants to win or play hard - he’s going to b*tch himself out of the rest of his career....
Sure enough, Rendon failed to execute the sacrifice.
= = = = = = = = = = =
Did it again tonight.
Had DESMOND (of all people) trying to bunt top of 9th, 2-1 Braves, runners 1-2, no out.
Desmond dropped one down IN FRONT OF THE PLATE, so close he had to wait for the Catcher to field the ball before he could run - Catcher tosses to third - force out - Third to First double play now 2 out, runner on 2nd.....
Every point is spot on. This one killed me. Terry Collins made sure the Nats faced his horses every game. And that last series adjusted his lineup so that every other hitter was a lefty. We did nothing to compensate...just acted like it was any other series. In fact, Williams is on record saying that he manages every game the same....regular season or post season. what kind of nonsense is that?
I think Mike Rizzo has some very loud music to face in the off season. Letting Clippard go was bad enough but then destroying Drew Storen's psyche, again, by demoting him when he was the only bright spot in that dark hole of a bullpen is the last straw for me. Storen was 29 for 31 in save situations! You perform like that and then get demoted?
“Mike Rizzo thought the solution to the team’s actual mid-season needs-—namely, a little offensive fortification and some bullpen help for the middle innings-—was to deal for a disgruntled Phillies closer who put a gun to the heads of any team that might deal for him, saying he wouldn’t go unless he was named the closer”
Don’t forget that Storen - the incumbent closer - went into the tank when Papelbon was brought in until - in a fit of frustration - he punched a wall and broke his hand. This Nats team was supposed to demolish the NL East. Rizzo and Williams both need to go.
David Price hasn’t shown any slow down since leaving.
He doesn't count :-) since he was traded against his own wishes, and didn't leave for the money; the same thing happened to other pitchers over the years like James Shields, Wade Davis, and Jeremy Hellickson.
Interestingly enough, the one pitcher of recent vintage who left on his own, Fernando Rodney, has never matched his year at TB, and has bounced around a few teams until, most recently, finding a home at, of all places, the Cubs, with his former TB manager Joe Maddon and second-in-command Dave Martinez.
P.S. Last weekend Price pitched against the Rays' Chris Archer, his protégé, two of the best pitchers in baseball today. The result? The Jays won, 10-8; not much of a pitcher's duel going on there.
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