Vanessa and I are out in the NY metro area for her older brother’s Saturday wedding. She’s a big Mets fan (go Jose Reyes!), so we asked the Papa Hopp ticket connection if it could deliver some seats to the Thursday afternoon game between the Mets and the St. Louis Cardinals. Sure enough, he came through with some pimp seats that were 13 rows back of home plate, slightly to the third base side.
I was excited to see Albert Pujols, linchpin of my fantasy team and object of my man-crush, in-person for the first time. Vanessa was excited to wear her new home whites Mets/Jose Reyes jersey. And off we went!
Well, first we had to deal with some great Long Island traffic and difficult parking in Port Washington, such that we jogged from the car to the Long Island Railroad station. But anyway.
Citi Field is a nice stadium with an appealing brick facade. I believe this is supposed to recall Ebbets Field. The historian in me gets a kick out of that, because Robert Moses, master builder of New York, blocked the Dodgers from replacing Ebbets Field in Brooklyn (leading to their departure for LA) and then had Shea Stadium built in Flushing Meadows as part of the World’s Fair complex. » Read the rest of this entry «
Yes, it’s time for another round of Fulmer Cup, in which the intrepid bloggers at EveryDayShouldBeSaturday.com monitor off-the-field indiscretions and award points to lucky programs. In their words:
The Fulmer (Memorial) Cup celebrates in Bronx Cheer fashion those in collegiate athletics most prone to testing the bounds of civil and criminal code with outlandish, illegal, and sometimes injurious behavior. If you’re joining us for the first time here: the Fulmer Cup awards points for programs based on charges filed against players from said programs, with the points going to a collective tally for each school.
Offenses are divided into various categories. E.g., murder is worth 5 points, the most of any offense. My favorite category:
* Fightin’ in ‘da Club/Weed Possession/Standard DUI: 2 points. Any scenario involving group fighting of a thugged-out, ‘we run this place’ variety, and marijuana possession of the nickel bag level. Possession of 100 pounds of marijuana is a totally different thing, and takes you right back up to the 4 point ‘nefarious’ level.
My favorite part of Fulmer Cup 2008 was Jimmy Johns, the Alabama player who not only shares a name with a great Michigan (Midwestern?) sandwich chain but also racked up something like 20 points by himself for a cocaine ring he led.
Great stuff: thanks to Every Day Should Be Saturday for the heads up on Percy Harvin, star Florida WR/RB, slapping that ass of his head coach as the clock wound down in last week’s national title game. Also amusing are the guys working the DVR in this video clip.
From MGoBlog comes this wonderful Dateline sexual predator clip:
Naturally, I e-mailed this clip to one of my clients, a big Ohio State fan. His response?
“I see your “to catch a predator” and raise you one, “Carl Monday”.” He enclosed this link:
That’s been in short supply around here since opening day in April, as the Tigers stumbled out of the gate, made a brief run at it, and then fell back out of it to dregs-ville. But after reading Nate Silver’s detailed look (Baseball Prospectus, subscription needed) at the Tigers’ roster through 2014, I’m a little more optimistic. Closing three paragraphs:
Outlook and Recommendations
Bad years happen to good clubs. The key for the Tigers will simply be not to panic, nor to try and save face with guys like Renteria and Willis whose projections don’t really warrant it. The Tigers need to budget somewhere between $15-$20 million for perhaps three pitchers next year, but with the contracts of Renteria, Todd Jones, Kenny Rogers, and Ivan Rodriguez all coming off the books, they can easily afford to do so without increasing payroll.
There are ample opportunities to take advantage of the depth of their position-player roster at spots like shortstop, DH, and left field. On the other hand, while the system has produced a lot of league-average talent, it is short on high-upside guys, and the Tigers must absolutely resist the temptation to deal someone like Wilkin Ramirez. To the extent that the Tigers can pull in minor league talent for Gary Sheffield, or re-flip a Kyle Farnsworth, it is past time for them to do so.
This has been a frustrating season in Detroit, but hardly a disastrous one in terms of the club’s long-term fortunes. There have been several pleasant surprises this year in Galarraga, Joyce, and Brandon Inge’s smooth transition back to the catcher position. From top to bottom, the Tigers still rank somewhere in the top ten in the major leagues in terms of their overall talent pool, and they should be on track to return to contention with some relatively common-sense fixes.
Vanessa and I are out in the NY metro area for her older brother’s Saturday wedding. She’s a big Mets fan (go Jose Reyes!), so we asked the Papa Hopp ticket connection if it could deliver some seats to the Thursday afternoon game between the Mets and the St. Louis Cardinals. Sure enough, he came through with some pimp seats that were 13 rows back of home plate, slightly to the third base side.
Well, first we had to deal with some great Long Island traffic and difficult parking in Port Washington, such that we jogged from the car to the Long Island Railroad station. But anyway.