Frayed Knot

They meet - in Beantown - for the first time tonight. It's just a short 2-game series but it's the first of 12 that they'll play head-to-head over the next 5 weeks. Only 7 more after that for the rest of the season. You may have heard ESPN mention (70 or 80 times - in between their 55 hours of continuous draft coverage) that they're carrying tonight's game. I think I also heard somewhere that this marks Johnny Damon's return to Boston - although this has largely been kept a secret otherwise. - Wang vs Wakefield tonight - Sox traded (back) for Doug Mirabelli. The backup catcher they had been using for Tim Wakefield (Josh Bard) has been having a miserable time of trying to coral the knuckleball and apparently Jason Varitek had it written into his contract that; 'I don't have to catch that crazy fuck!'. Mirabelli wins himself a pre-season bet w/Peter Gammons that he'd be back in 'The Hub' by May 15th. - No Sheffield, still banged up from his 1st base collision the other day w/Shea Hillenbrand. Giambi at DH, Cairo (tee-hee) at 1st, Bubba Crosby in RF (has George been informed of this?)

If your boy here reaches the majors and plunks a certain SF Giant reliever with a fastball can we say that it was a case of a Serfass to Eyre missle?

No, it was the other way around. Remember that Burnitz was - and still is - a useful player so the Dodgers absorbed whatever he was still owed. Alomar, on the other hand, was more or less shot so the Mets & ChiSox worked out a deal where the Mets paid his remaining salary on a delayed basis - not coughing it up (approx $3mil) until the following spring so as to not trigger a lux tax payment.

What George said: "I think it is a crime that the league would assign a rookie umpire to a crucial series [NYY vs TOR] like this, ... It is just stupid." What George means: These fill-in umps [he wasn't technically a rookie] should be assigned to all those unimportant NON-Yankee games. Those games don't mean anything anyway"

I don't think that the 'they don't belong in the dugout' automatically equates to an attitude of 'they shouldn't be in the front office either'. Players tend to think of the dugout as "their" place, a place like an executives' only lunch room where one needs to earn their way in and not get a pass due to connections and I suspect his first reaction was that she was in there as a favor to someone or via some misguided affirmative action thing. It's more of an elitist/privilege attitude really than it was some outdated notion of roles. That he phrased his objections horribly and dug himself a bit deeper each time he tried to slither out meant he pretty much deserved to shitstorm that came down on him afterward - although there's still some question as to why a masseuse needs to be in the dugout - in uniform? - high-fiving the guys as the come in the dugout. There are rules as to who and how many "extras" can be there and having some (3rd? or 4th?) member of the training staff in there looking somewhat like a mascot/batgirl was bound to raise a few eyebrows. I think there's a middle ground between 'giving him a pass' and demanding that he quickly be canned. Not calling for the latter doesn't neccesarily mean you're doing the former.

I agree that assuming some sort of fundamental organizational change has been decreed & implemented and is now showing results is a huge leap of faith. More likely it's a small sample size based on only two chosen (albeit important) players.

- Heath Bell notched career minor-league save No. 100 last Sunday. (Cumulative minor league milestones are a mixed blessing at best) Also, several players on the move to Norfolk (courtesy A. Rubin's DN Blog): - RHP Anderson Garcia, who had a 1.59 ERA and a save in nine relief appearances at Double-A Binghamton, earned a promotion to Norfolk on Friday. He replaces Mitch Wylie, the Rule 5 pick from the Giants who landed on the disabled list for the second time this season with a shoulder issue. - Binghamton’s Miguel Perez (1-1, 3.86 ERA) is expected to move to Triple-A Norfolk and enter the rotation.

ABG up and Elster88 on deck for two quickie series this week.

Charley O'Leary

A few weeks ago one of the announcers mentioned the oldest player ever to score a run in MLB. Some guy named Charley sumtin. Irish name I think but all I keep coming up with is Charley O'Brian and I'm sure that's wrong. Anyway, when it was mentioned I looked up the guy. He played in the teens ... and then didn't for almost 20 years when he re-appeared in 1934 or so, had 1 AB, got a single, and later scored ... then never played again. He was 53 y/o and hadn't played in MLB since his 30s. Gotta be some good story behind that one.

Because the man with the ball was between him and the bag. He was still too far away to slide and continuing to run would - or at least Could -have made himself an easy tag target. There would have been no take-out slide because the ball wouldn't have been fed to the bag. It's a split second decision which made little difference either way.

Nymr83 wrote: Why did Matsui just stop in the basepaths???? wheres the takeout slide??? at least do that "i'm pretending to duck but really getting in your way" thing... He figured if he kept running he'd run into the tag play and make the DP easier. By stopping he at least made them make two throws. Not a big deal because it was a simple DP either way but I didn't see it as laziness or brain-lock.

Glavine - 5.1 LoDuca - 2.0 Floyd - 0.7 Heilman - 1.0 Wagner - 1.2

Randy Johnson looking bad but a succession of Jays pitchers looking badder. 9-5 Skanks in the 5th - and they're only 2+ hours into the game. Not sure the NFL draft will take as long as this game. Omar's the guy who traded Brandon Phillips away, would have been intereting if he snagged him back. He was the considered the main cog in that Bartolo Colon deal but it's the other two; Sizemore & Cliff Lee, who shined while Phillips phlopped

Jeez, that's 31 Ks in only 40 outs. No fielders need apply!

While I'm not going to rush out to see this I'm not sure I'd purposely avoid it either.

Has struggled? -- Yes Has struggled because of the situations(s) to the point where you'd be confident that it's likely he'll continue to do so in the future? -- Doubtful

Martinez - 4.2 Wright - 2.3 Reyes - 1.4 LoDuca - 0.4 Matsui - 0.6 Sanchez - 0.8 Wagner - 0.3

]What about the Cubs getting Sammy Sosa from the Rangers for some aging outfielder whose name I forget Sammy actually went to Chicago's south side first, being traded to the ChiSox by Texas for Harold Baines 'mongst others. He then did the cross-town shuttle - while he still had a rep as a good glove/light hitting OFer - in exchange for the aging George Bell.

"Its nice to hear him say he's sorry and all" Or at least that his agent is since HE's the only one we heard from. "I'm hearing app. 3 weeks and I think it should be longer than that. " I'd like to see them start at around 50 days

Can't help you out as far as downloading stats goes but, just as far as looking up current stuff, I find the stats section at 'The Hardball Times' infinitely easier to use than say ESPN's. Much quicker and easier to get at, sort and qualify. Nothing prior to 2004 however.

What I'm trying to say (and prolly failing miserably) is that it looks to me like he's been getting [u:c8c7b49d2e]into[/u:c8c7b49d2e] trouble because (at least in part) he's been rather [u:c8c7b49d2e]UN[/u:c8c7b49d2e]lucky with BABiP at the beginning of innings; about as unlucky as he's been lucky later on dancing out of those jams. As things regress towards the norms we could see him get into fewer messes while perhaps not being as magical at making them disappear w/o damage.

I'm not sure I'd use "train-wreck" to describe the spectre of Nady in CF. I used that "weird route to balls" line a week or two back but I also said that he usually gets to where he needs to be. Yeah he's missed a couple but has made some decent plays as well. Mostly speculation - and it's all moot if Beltran is back playing tonight - but I think Nady in the middle is something we could live with for 2 weeks.

Ya don't have to be desperate to draft that!

I read where teen sensation Fernando Martinez had 7 doubles last week. Also, BA takes a question this morning speculating on where he'd fall if draftable since he'd just now be coming up on that age. Q: Mets outfielder Fernando Martinez is off to a strong start at low Class A Hagerstown as a 17-year-old, hitting .323/.408/.538 with one homer, eight RBIs and three steals in 17 games. If Martinez were a high school senior right now, where would he likely be drafted in June? A: Martinez signed for $1.4 million out of the Dominican Republic last summer. Though he was a free agent then and would be restricted to negotiating with one team in the draft, he'd do better this June. In a draft crop that's very thin on position players and is getting the worst early reviews since the 2000 bunch, Martinez would be coveted. Realistically, he's at three years away from the major leagues, so that might keep him from going No. 1 overall, but he'd likely be one of the first five or 10 picks. He's better than any high school position player available, and you could argue him against the top college position players. Martinez has a higher ceiling than Long Beach State third baseman Evan Longoria, and scouts believe he's a safer bet to hit than Texas outfielder Drew Stubbs. Martinez already is an advanced hitter and he also has above-average power potential. With solid speed and a strong arm, he projects as a quality all-around right fielder. For the sake of comparison, he's outperforming the other 17-year-old phenoms in the South Atlantic League, Braves shortstop Elvis Andrus (.221/.279/.284) and Yankees outfielder Jose Tabata (.329/.342/.452). IOW; still real early, but promising.