Steve Rosenbloom’s streak of semi-reasonable articles came to a screeching halt yesterday (we’re all regression fans here, so we saw this coming) with his “thrashing” of the Cubs’ Carlos Zambrano and his decision to go adopt a child during the All-Star break. Cue Rosenbloom: Latest cases in point began when Zambrano went on the disabled list with a bad back …
A look back at “Major League”
Sports Illustrated has a lengthy interview with the minds behind “Major League,” one of the greatest sports comedies of all time in my humble opinion. It’s probably worth a half hour of your time to skim through it. Hopefully Bob Uecker is still kicking around when they finally decide to make a good sequel; Major League II and III never …
Joe Posnanski’s SI story on Jose Bautista
Joe Posnanski is, of course, a very good sportswriter, and his story for Sports Illustrated this coming issue is on Jose Bautista and whether you can believe that his feats can simply happen rather than be the result of some bionic enhancement. I’d recommend reading if it you have about 20 minutes to kill.
A Look Back: Michael Barrett
This season sucks. I wanted to bring up something (kind of) relevent from year’s past. Different people will have different opinions, but I never fully grasped the impact Michael Barrett had on the Cubs during his tenure. Why Barrett? 1) White Sox-Cubs is tonight, and punching A.J. Pierzynski is something I think we all wish we could do and 2) …
TOOTBLAN and rundown silliness
Had a bit of fun with this rundown of Brett Gardner in the Yankees-Cubs game at Wrigley Field on Saturday. Officially I think it’s a 1-3-4-3-4-2-6 putout. Based on a conversation I had elsewhere, I wonder if it’s possible to have a “pi” putout. Pi from memory is 3.14159265358979 and the digits allow for every position on the diamond to …
Paul Sullivan Has A Problem, Pt. ∞
On April 30th, a scant 13 days after an 8 IP, 0 ER, 1 BB, 10K appearance by Carlos Zambrano, Paul Sullivan wrote that Garza was the first Cub to go eight innings that year. We mocked it, but thought nothing of it. Unfortunately, we were asleep on the watch. Last week, Zambrano again took the mound to great success, …
Something for Memorial Day
I know some of you folks served in the military and would appreciate something like this. As Memorial Day is tomorrow I thought I’d hunt down some information on veterans associated with baseball who served during war time. The most well-known were those who served in World War II, and this website does a good job of documenting those players, …
Pirates (sorta) winning, attendance goes up
In a Hardball Talk blog today, Drew Silva reported that the Pittsburgh Pirates’ attendance is up relative to last year. A couple reasons why: 1. PNC Park is really nice. As reported below: According to Rob Biertempfel of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, ticket sales this year at the gorgeous PNC Park are already up 2.4 percent and are 14 percent ahead …
Soriano’s Contract: Disability Insurance
It makes sense for Major League Baseball teams, when handing out large multiyeared contracts that are “guaranteed,” to have an insurance policy to lessen the loss to the organization should the player suffer a career ending inury or be otherwise physically unable to play for the team. Given Alfonso Soriano’s contract, I thought I’d be interesting to take a look …
St. Louis Cardinals @ Chicago Cubs
GamedayBref Preview Cardinals wOBA wRC Def Cubs wOBA wRC Def Ryan Theriot .298 .39 -.01 Kosuke Fukudome .343 .57 -.06 Colby Rasmus .348 .57 .01 Darwin Barney .297 .38 .03 Albert Pujols .413 .79 .02 Marlon Byrd .334 .50 -.01 Matt Holliday .389 .68 .02 Aramis Ramirez .347 .53 -.03 Lance Berkman .378 .62 .00 Alfonso Soriano .347 .52 -.10 …