Thursday, March 24, 2005
Hyzdu Heads West
I missed this on Tuesday. (I told you I haven't been keeping up with the news reports lately.) The God Of Altoona has been traded from the Red Sox to the San Diego Padres.
From what this article at mlb.com's Padres site reports, he's still going to end up playing at AAA for the Pods. Excerpt:
From what this article at mlb.com's Padres site reports, he's still going to end up playing at AAA for the Pods. Excerpt:
PEORIA, Ariz. -- The Padres solved the problem of what to do about Blaine Neal's candidacy for the last spot in their bullpen Tuesday by shipping the right-handed reliever to the Red Sox for outfielder Adam Hyzdu.In Hyzdu, the Padres get a 33-year-old who made his Major League debut in 2000 and has spent much of the time since then between Triple-A and the Majors. In 2004, Hyzdu was an International League All-Star with the Pawtucket PawSox, batting .301 with a league-leading .413 on-base percentage and a .568 slugging percentage that ranked fourth in the league. He hit 29 homers and 33 doubles while racking up 79 RBIs and 92 runs scored in 129 games.
Hyzdu's biggest season in the Majors came in 2002, when he batted .232 with 11 homers in 155 at-bats with the Pirates. Last season, the 6-foot-2, 220-pounder went 3-for-10 with a homer for the Red Sox.
It's unlikely there is room on the Padres' Opening Day roster for Hyzdu, since the Padres' bench is essentially set and includes homegrown power prospect Xavier Nady, who will get the bulk of the spot starts in the outfield as well as third base. But Hyzdu has minor league options left, meaning he can be sent down to the minors without having to clear waivers.
Gee willickers. The Padres' AAA team is located in Portland Oregon, so at least he'll be somewhat closer to the wife and kiddies, who reside in Mesa AZ.
I sure do wish he'd have been traded to someone who could have given him that final bump up to a regular spot on their big league roster, after all these years the guy's been busting his adorable ass in the minors. He did get a call-up last September with Boston, and even earned a Ring, although he wasn't eligible to play in the postseason.
Maybe Giles will blow out an ACL. Noooo, I don't wish ill on Brian... not really.
Tuesday, March 22, 2005
More Live Baseball For Leeeny
Due to the recent puppy business, one thing I haven't had the time to do in the last week is poke around through the online media sources and my roster of linked Pirate blogs, to get a feel for what's going on in Florida at the moment. It's so very different to blog about Spring Training from 1200 miles away and filtered through beat reporters and other bloggers, as compared to being in Bradenton myself and typing about what my own eyeballs have observed. Frankly, the read/analyse/opine/post model is not what interests me much as a blogger, although I do it when I have a reasonably strong opinion about something. But that's in no way slamming anyone who blogs in that fashion. Au contraire, I rely on Rowdy and the others listed in my Links to do that better than I could ever manage. I just don't think there's much point to running this blog as a substandard clone of that sort of editorial endeavor. I'm the embedded reporter rather than the op-ed analyist, more interested in writing about things that I'm seeing for myself.
So, with that in mind, here's some baseball news going on right here in Central Pee-Ay, and it will presumably (HOPEFULLY) involve the Pirates in terms of their minor league affiliations:
Since last year the rumor mill in Altoona has been talking about the fact that the Curve's owners, Chuck Greenberg and his partners (who include Mario Lemieux and Jerome Bettis among others), were looking to work out some sort of deal with Penn State University up in State College. The goal was to upgrade the facilities for the university's varsity baseball team (which plays in the Big Ten and is usually pretty good) by building a new ballfield complex; and cooperatively to locate another minor-league franchise up there which would also use the facility, which Greenberg was hoping to purchase in the future. It was more than just scuttlebutt, because at one point Greenberg did let the local media know that this was indeed something he was working to accomplish.
Well, as of this press release dated Friday 3/18, that deal now appears to be happening. First two paragraphs:
The Pirate-related angle to this deal rests in the fact that the Pirates currently have their low-A-ball, short-season New York-Penn League affiliate, the Crosscutters, in Williamsport. Imagine, if you will, a somewhat zigzaggy diagonal line of something around 100 miles, running from southwest to northeast through the middle of Pennsylvania. Altoona, home of the Pirates' AA Eastern League affiliate the Altoona Curve, is at the southwestern endpoint of this line. Leeeny Herself lives in Tyrone, which is 17 miles up the line from Altoona. State College is 30 miles up the line from Tyrone, and Williamsport is at the northeastern endpoint of the line, 60 miles from State College. For reference, Pittsburgh is about 90 miles west of the Altoona end of the line.
Part of Chuck Greenberg's task in bringing this deal to fruition was to get the Crosscutters' ownership to sign off on allowing a competing NYPenn league franchise to relocate only 60 miles away. Apparently Chuck was successful in this. I expect that his considerable talents as a sports-team-owning, sports-marketing-savvy attorney came in handy.
It therefore seems likely to think (HOPE!) that the new State College ballclub will become the Bucco affiliate in the NYPenn league, requiring Williamsport to sign a new deal with another MLB organization. Williamsport is more commonly though of as Philly-centric than Pittsburgh-centric, but who knows what will result there. The only time I ever attended a game at Historic Bowman Field, in the mid '90s, the team was an affiliate of the Cubs. The Pirates picked them up in 1998, right before the Curve arrived in Altoona, in 1999.
But I got a bit of pretty reliable information recently, that posited that the NYPenn team most likely to relocate to State College would be the Oneonta (NY) Tigers, currently affiliated with Detroit. Oneonta's ballpark was built in 1939 and is in need of a lot of renovation. They have the 2nd lowest attendance in the NYPenn League, and the owner made some noise last year about selling the team unless there was a significant attendance increase. Attendance dropped further from that point until the end of the season. Thus spake Oneonta.
So if the stars align properly here, Leeeny may very well end up with:
· Low-A-ball Pirates prospects to see within half an hour's drive
· AA-ball Pirates prospects to see within 20 minutes' drive
· MLB Pirates to see within 2.5 hours' drive
My, my, my. Heaven and Iowa won't have nuthin' on moi. It may be true that Tyrone (pop. ~4500) is an eentsy little podunk town located in the middle of nowhere, but at least it's a WELL-LOCATED middle of nowhere, and increasingly so where Bucco Baseball is concerned.
I'm still waiting for sushi, however. It's available in Altoona and State College (I bow down to you, oh wonderful Wegman's), but its appearance in Tyrone is not expected anytime soon. Hell, we don't even have a Long John Silver's.
....(addendum, 3/24, 0934est).... And what will they name the ballteam?!! I'm going to have to chew on that. If any suggestions come to your mind, feel free to share them in the comments. As its name would imply, State College doesn't have much of an identity apart from PSU, so I don't know what else they have to work with, in the way that Altoona had the railroad. The State College Everlasting Joepas?
So, with that in mind, here's some baseball news going on right here in Central Pee-Ay, and it will presumably (HOPEFULLY) involve the Pirates in terms of their minor league affiliations:
Since last year the rumor mill in Altoona has been talking about the fact that the Curve's owners, Chuck Greenberg and his partners (who include Mario Lemieux and Jerome Bettis among others), were looking to work out some sort of deal with Penn State University up in State College. The goal was to upgrade the facilities for the university's varsity baseball team (which plays in the Big Ten and is usually pretty good) by building a new ballfield complex; and cooperatively to locate another minor-league franchise up there which would also use the facility, which Greenberg was hoping to purchase in the future. It was more than just scuttlebutt, because at one point Greenberg did let the local media know that this was indeed something he was working to accomplish.
Well, as of this press release dated Friday 3/18, that deal now appears to be happening. First two paragraphs:
Hershey, Pa. -- Featuring accommodations for approximately 6,000 spectators in its three-level design, preliminary plans for the new baseball park at Penn State's University Park campus were approved by the University's Board of Trustees Friday (March 18).The park will be adjacent to Beaver Stadium, and also to the Bryce Jordan Center. Say adios to another big chunk of football tailgating space. The past-third-base and left-field seats are going to have a fabulous view of Mount Nittany, it looks like.
The ballpark, which is being designed by the architectural firm of L. Robert Kimball and Associates of State College, will be the new home for the Penn State baseball team as well as a minor league baseball team to be acquired by the owners of the Altoona Curve franchise. The facility is scheduled to be ready for use by the minor league team in June 2006.
(click the pic to see a much larger version - it's about 1.3MB)
The Pirate-related angle to this deal rests in the fact that the Pirates currently have their low-A-ball, short-season New York-Penn League affiliate, the Crosscutters, in Williamsport. Imagine, if you will, a somewhat zigzaggy diagonal line of something around 100 miles, running from southwest to northeast through the middle of Pennsylvania. Altoona, home of the Pirates' AA Eastern League affiliate the Altoona Curve, is at the southwestern endpoint of this line. Leeeny Herself lives in Tyrone, which is 17 miles up the line from Altoona. State College is 30 miles up the line from Tyrone, and Williamsport is at the northeastern endpoint of the line, 60 miles from State College. For reference, Pittsburgh is about 90 miles west of the Altoona end of the line.
Part of Chuck Greenberg's task in bringing this deal to fruition was to get the Crosscutters' ownership to sign off on allowing a competing NYPenn league franchise to relocate only 60 miles away. Apparently Chuck was successful in this. I expect that his considerable talents as a sports-team-owning, sports-marketing-savvy attorney came in handy.
It therefore seems likely to think (HOPE!) that the new State College ballclub will become the Bucco affiliate in the NYPenn league, requiring Williamsport to sign a new deal with another MLB organization. Williamsport is more commonly though of as Philly-centric than Pittsburgh-centric, but who knows what will result there. The only time I ever attended a game at Historic Bowman Field, in the mid '90s, the team was an affiliate of the Cubs. The Pirates picked them up in 1998, right before the Curve arrived in Altoona, in 1999.
But I got a bit of pretty reliable information recently, that posited that the NYPenn team most likely to relocate to State College would be the Oneonta (NY) Tigers, currently affiliated with Detroit. Oneonta's ballpark was built in 1939 and is in need of a lot of renovation. They have the 2nd lowest attendance in the NYPenn League, and the owner made some noise last year about selling the team unless there was a significant attendance increase. Attendance dropped further from that point until the end of the season. Thus spake Oneonta.
So if the stars align properly here, Leeeny may very well end up with:
· Low-A-ball Pirates prospects to see within half an hour's drive
· AA-ball Pirates prospects to see within 20 minutes' drive
· MLB Pirates to see within 2.5 hours' drive
My, my, my. Heaven and Iowa won't have nuthin' on moi. It may be true that Tyrone (pop. ~4500) is an eentsy little podunk town located in the middle of nowhere, but at least it's a WELL-LOCATED middle of nowhere, and increasingly so where Bucco Baseball is concerned.
I'm still waiting for sushi, however. It's available in Altoona and State College (I bow down to you, oh wonderful Wegman's), but its appearance in Tyrone is not expected anytime soon. Hell, we don't even have a Long John Silver's.
....(addendum, 3/24, 0934est).... And what will they name the ballteam?!! I'm going to have to chew on that. If any suggestions come to your mind, feel free to share them in the comments. As its name would imply, State College doesn't have much of an identity apart from PSU, so I don't know what else they have to work with, in the way that Altoona had the railroad. The State College Everlasting Joepas?
Sunday, March 20, 2005
The Dog Ate My Blog
Mea culpa, but I've been seriously swamped ever since we got back from Florida. First we had the whole car-repair thing to deal with (read the previous post, then don't ask). After that it was time to switch hats and become Ms. Beagle Assistant Obstetrician And Pediatrician, as this year's litter of little critters arrived on Saint Patrick's Day. Three boys, three girls, everyone big and wiggly and hungry. And now the phone calls and paperwork to deal with the people who will be getting the pups, etc. Plus they're much more cute and fun to spend time with than sitting here typing about Pirate preseason prognostications.
If you happen to be the curious sort, you can go take a look at www.baldeaglebeagles.com.
However I did catch the television broadcast of today's win over the World Champion Boston Red Sox. Other than some serious pangs of McKechnie Withdrawal that the centerfield-camera views of the stands induced in me, I have only this to say:
ADAM DAMN HYZDU!
I'll try to get my blogging groove back in the next few days, if the puppies allow. Call it my mid-spring-training slump, or my post-vacation letdown, whatever. I've got a guaranteed roster spot here, so I am not going to beat myself up over it. Once in a while, the value of this blog is exactly what you pay its author in order to read it.
If you happen to be the curious sort, you can go take a look at www.baldeaglebeagles.com.
However I did catch the television broadcast of today's win over the World Champion Boston Red Sox. Other than some serious pangs of McKechnie Withdrawal that the centerfield-camera views of the stands induced in me, I have only this to say:
ADAM DAMN HYZDU!
I'll try to get my blogging groove back in the next few days, if the puppies allow. Call it my mid-spring-training slump, or my post-vacation letdown, whatever. I've got a guaranteed roster spot here, so I am not going to beat myself up over it. Once in a while, the value of this blog is exactly what you pay its author in order to read it.
Sunday, March 13, 2005
400 Miles In A Tow Truck
We left Georgia at 8am Saturday, were in Abingdon VA by lunchtime, and pulled off I-81 to get gas. While at the pump, the computer-control for the automatic transmission decided to die die die, leaving us unable to go forward in any gear higher than 1st ("emergency limp-home mode"). Limping home, when home is 400 miles away, is not something to be seriously considered. So, 8.5 hours in a noisy/cold/cramped/smoke-filled truck cab later, and $900 poorer, we backed the car down off the flatbed and pulled (limply) into our own driveway shortly before midnight. Now we get to have the thing towed up to the dealer on Monday, and argue about their fancy warranty service's coverage of long-distance towing bills.
I'll summarize the whole baseball thing in the next day or two, when my brain has stopped rattling around in my skull.
I'll summarize the whole baseball thing in the next day or two, when my brain has stopped rattling around in my skull.
Thursday, March 10, 2005
Bradenton: Thu. 3/10
No game for us today, we chose Art over Sport. Sounds like it was a ballgame we'd have liked to see, but I was not about to drive a hundred miles into the enemy territory of the Evil Mouse Empire, just to watch That Other Team. Ugh.
So, Art. Cà d’Zan means, in a dialect of Venetian, "House of John". As in Mr. Ringling (he of owning the Circus) - or even Mr. DogBoy (he of being the Clown), although I hate to give away his secret identity. But that mellifluous name, Cà d’Zan, may just have to be employed for Chez Leeeny/DogBoy (Cà d’Zan del Nord?), especially as our abode is so very similar to the Ringlings'. Oh yes it is.
Come to Bradenton, drive 11 miles south on 301, hang a right on University Parkway, till you reach Sarasota Bay, and spend a day at this place. Well worth giving a ballgame up for, if that's what it takes. Rubens, Velásquez, Titian, Gainsborough, Roman marbles, Greek ceramics ... and running through April 10th, a really fine exhibit of Ansel Adams photographs, from the George Eastman House archives. I tended to think of his work as a bit overexposed (nyuk nyuk), ubiquitous as matted-and-black-framed reproductions in restaurants and hotel lobbies. But the real photos are just fabulous, fabulous. I have some past experience with black-and-white darkroom work, so the chance to get my nose nearly smack-dab up against actual large prints of his, well lordamercy. I must find out what speed of 'film' he used - I know he prepared his own glass-plate negatives, but somehow there should be an equivalent ASA rating. He got the most incredible depth of field and there is just NO grain on these prints. The detail is stunning, and you don't see that in the mass-produced halftone reproductions on posters or magazine pages. And what impressed me even more was the thought of how much brute trekking the guy had to do, lugging that big view camera on its tripod, and his unexposed plates, to places that were way beyond normal accessibility. He didn't even make a LIVING doing this, but had to do commercial work to support his family.
So. Tonight we had an encore/farewell meal at the Oyster Bar, packed and cleaned up our digs, and we're out of here in mid-morning, to head up to Winter Haven for at least some of the game vs the Indians. It's going to play hell with our driving schedule, since it's about 11 hours to our sleepover point, and 11 more hours on Saturday to get back to Cà d’Zan del Nord. But what the hell, I just don't want to blow off the game, not when Perez will pitch the first couple of innings at least.
I doubt I'll be back online until Sunday after we get home. I'll have to think of some suitable Overall Conclusions to draw from the Spring Training Sojourn, 2005 Edition. Stay tuned.
So, Art. Cà d’Zan means, in a dialect of Venetian, "House of John". As in Mr. Ringling (he of owning the Circus) - or even Mr. DogBoy (he of being the Clown), although I hate to give away his secret identity. But that mellifluous name, Cà d’Zan, may just have to be employed for Chez Leeeny/DogBoy (Cà d’Zan del Nord?), especially as our abode is so very similar to the Ringlings'. Oh yes it is.
Come to Bradenton, drive 11 miles south on 301, hang a right on University Parkway, till you reach Sarasota Bay, and spend a day at this place. Well worth giving a ballgame up for, if that's what it takes. Rubens, Velásquez, Titian, Gainsborough, Roman marbles, Greek ceramics ... and running through April 10th, a really fine exhibit of Ansel Adams photographs, from the George Eastman House archives. I tended to think of his work as a bit overexposed (nyuk nyuk), ubiquitous as matted-and-black-framed reproductions in restaurants and hotel lobbies. But the real photos are just fabulous, fabulous. I have some past experience with black-and-white darkroom work, so the chance to get my nose nearly smack-dab up against actual large prints of his, well lordamercy. I must find out what speed of 'film' he used - I know he prepared his own glass-plate negatives, but somehow there should be an equivalent ASA rating. He got the most incredible depth of field and there is just NO grain on these prints. The detail is stunning, and you don't see that in the mass-produced halftone reproductions on posters or magazine pages. And what impressed me even more was the thought of how much brute trekking the guy had to do, lugging that big view camera on its tripod, and his unexposed plates, to places that were way beyond normal accessibility. He didn't even make a LIVING doing this, but had to do commercial work to support his family.
So. Tonight we had an encore/farewell meal at the Oyster Bar, packed and cleaned up our digs, and we're out of here in mid-morning, to head up to Winter Haven for at least some of the game vs the Indians. It's going to play hell with our driving schedule, since it's about 11 hours to our sleepover point, and 11 more hours on Saturday to get back to Cà d’Zan del Nord. But what the hell, I just don't want to blow off the game, not when Perez will pitch the first couple of innings at least.
I doubt I'll be back online until Sunday after we get home. I'll have to think of some suitable Overall Conclusions to draw from the Spring Training Sojourn, 2005 Edition. Stay tuned.
Wednesday, March 09, 2005
Bradenton: Wed. 3/9
Rainout at McKechnie. Was to be the BlueJays. We hung around under the concourse from the time the gates opened at 11 till they finally scrubbed the game at 1, and the only question was why they waited so long before calling it. I'm told that the game will be credited against the cost of next year's season ticket purchase, so I guess that means that I'll have one coming to me when we return in '06. Hear that, James?
Fogg had been slated to pitch. Looks like Bay will be out a week or so with what John Perrotto told us at breakfast was a bone bruise, but that he should be fine after it has time to heal. Whew, that's a bullet dodged.
So the team travels to Orlando tomorrow to play the Braves. Um, we'll take a pass on that one. I believe we'll drive back down to Sarasota to see the Ringling Museum (where there's an Ansel Adams photo exhibit) and the mansion, a Venetian Gothic, Gilded-Age wonder named Cà d’Zan. Oh for the days of conspicuous consumption and no income taxes. We've seen San Simeon, which is the be-all and end-all for this sort of house touring. DogBoy's sister is big on Circus History, so maybe we'll check out the circus museum too, although I think she's already been there. Friday we have tickets for the Pirate game vs Cleveland in Winter Haven, but DogBoy is telling me that we will have serious drive-time issues if we go over there for the game and don't head north until the late afternoon, so we may have to bag it and just head up I-75 in the morning. Anyone want two field-box seats on the 3B side for Friday's game at Chain of Lakes Park? Oh dang, I just read that Ollie is scheduled to start on Friday (link here, scroll down the page). Sheee-it, now we have ourselves even more of a dilemma.
Altoona Curve News: Radio play-by-play announcer Rob Egan is leaving the team, taking a job outside baseball as Communications Director for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown. Hmm, now there's a job that presents some challenges. Rob's replacement will be Paul Steigerwald, better known as the Penguins' sidekick to Mike Lange. I wonder if he'll commute.
Fogg had been slated to pitch. Looks like Bay will be out a week or so with what John Perrotto told us at breakfast was a bone bruise, but that he should be fine after it has time to heal. Whew, that's a bullet dodged.
So the team travels to Orlando tomorrow to play the Braves. Um, we'll take a pass on that one. I believe we'll drive back down to Sarasota to see the Ringling Museum (where there's an Ansel Adams photo exhibit) and the mansion, a Venetian Gothic, Gilded-Age wonder named Cà d’Zan. Oh for the days of conspicuous consumption and no income taxes. We've seen San Simeon, which is the be-all and end-all for this sort of house touring. DogBoy's sister is big on Circus History, so maybe we'll check out the circus museum too, although I think she's already been there. Friday we have tickets for the Pirate game vs Cleveland in Winter Haven, but DogBoy is telling me that we will have serious drive-time issues if we go over there for the game and don't head north until the late afternoon, so we may have to bag it and just head up I-75 in the morning. Anyone want two field-box seats on the 3B side for Friday's game at Chain of Lakes Park? Oh dang, I just read that Ollie is scheduled to start on Friday (link here, scroll down the page). Sheee-it, now we have ourselves even more of a dilemma.
Altoona Curve News: Radio play-by-play announcer Rob Egan is leaving the team, taking a job outside baseball as Communications Director for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown. Hmm, now there's a job that presents some challenges. Rob's replacement will be Paul Steigerwald, better known as the Penguins' sidekick to Mike Lange. I wonder if he'll commute.
Tuesday, March 08, 2005
Bradenton: Tue. 3/8
Reds 10, Pirates 4. 12 hits apiece. Same ol' same ol'. Pitchers bleah, hitters more bleah. Reds pitchers very bleah so our bats are just too lame to be believed. DogBoy says that this spring feels worse than last year's did, in terms of the way the team appears to look and 'feel' to him as a spectator. Considering that last year was the spring of Stynes/Simon Redux/Mondesi, this is a pretty grim assessment.
But that's not even the bad news. This is:
Jason Bay landed on and jammed his left wrist on a diving non-catch in the 5th inning. This could be very not good. Here's the report from the Pirates' site.
Also, the team released J.R. House after the game today. I'm guessing it's so that they don't have to pay him his full year's salary, since he's not going to be playing at all after his shoulder surgery the other week. I don't have a lot of time to poke deeper into this right now, as we're leaving to go eat schnitzel.
But that's not even the bad news. This is:
Jason Bay landed on and jammed his left wrist on a diving non-catch in the 5th inning. This could be very not good. Here's the report from the Pirates' site.
Also, the team released J.R. House after the game today. I'm guessing it's so that they don't have to pay him his full year's salary, since he's not going to be playing at all after his shoulder surgery the other week. I don't have a lot of time to poke deeper into this right now, as we're leaving to go eat schnitzel.
Monday, March 07, 2005
Bradenton: Mon. 3/7
It's way too late to be up typing, and the day was very long, but I'll see what I can do before I konk out.
Game One of split-squad duo against the Reds, at McKechnie. We lost 10-2. The clueless-at-the-plate problem is becoming alarming. These guys look like they do not have ANY idea how to approach an at-bat. It's not a question of having their bat speed up to snuff yet, or reaction time, or power stroke. It's about LOOKING LIKE BRAINLESS IDIOTS WHO HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THEY ARE DOING UP THERE. Do we not employ hitting coaches on this team? Was not our manager allegedly a hitting coach himself once? I'd be fining people's asses for swinging blindly at bad first pitches about now, it's just awful to see. My game notes are a bit scribbly but I think there was only one inning where we didn't go down with either just 3 or 4 batters appearing, and there were very few deep counts on anyone all day.
And as if that wasn't bad enough, look who was the first player I saw on the field when we arrived during Reds warmups...
Oh Joe, I miss you so much! I never even liked that Ramirez guy who took your place in the first place, and now look, we don't have him anymore either anyway. Burn in hell all over again some more, Cam Bonifay.
The Pirate pitching was adequate (didn't seem as bad as the score would indicate, although Kirk Bullinger stunk up the joint). Frequent pitching changes so hard to do any justice to stats. Defensively, we had 3 errors as well as several other misplayed balls (Grieve, Rajai Davis, Grieve again).
Here's Joe again, at bat against Todd Ritchie at the beginning of the game. Gives you a nice idea of the very good season tickets we get to use at McKechnie, as long as you don't mind looking through the screen. My photo is a little bit zoomed in, but not much. It is nice to have friends.
Game Two was the other split of the split squad, but there was a lot of overlap so this was rather a misnomer, it was just a home-and-home day-night double-header, as I would call it. Two for the price of two. This one was at Ed Smith Stadium, a dozen miles down Route 301 in Sarasota. Nice little park, although the food was limited in selection and pretty crappy in quality (the pizza is highly un-recommended, and the beer was $5.75). We bought general admission tickets but were told by the section usher that since there were lots of empty seats, it was okay to move into the main seating area, even before the game started. So we did.
I cannot explain the score other than to say it was due to some sucky Reds pitching and probably some hidden vigorish kicking in, but we won the nightcap 12-1. The whole game was strange, beginning with Dick Vitale walking right past me before the first pitch was thrown. Dick Vitale?? I was informed that he lives on nearby Siesta Key, so is a local resident. Shouldn't he be somewhere covering basketball games? Oh well, who am I to tell him how to spend his time.
6 Bucco runs in the 3rd, including a 2-RBI single by Ian Snell who was pitching by then (Maholm started but only went 1 inning, like I said the pitchers were in Revolving Door mode all day today). 5 more runs in the 7th, including a 3-run homer by infielder Jose Leon. One more run as a solo homer in the 8th by Graham Koonce. Koonce has been a rare case of someone who has been impressive at the plate in the four games I've seen. And he's a lefty.
I've seen way more than enough of Cesar Crespo at short. Jack, please finish healing. Fast.
After the game the Cincinnati folks put on a 'Fireworks Extravaganza'. It was... extravagant. Well, not bad for a small park in March, at any rate.
Tomorrow (Tuesday) it's likely to rain, at least in the morning. Wilbur says they are quick to cancel games down here since the fields drain so poorly, but we have our fingers crossed. Last year there was no rain the whole time we were in Florida, so I've yet to deal with a rainout. More hidden vigorish? I hope not.
Game One of split-squad duo against the Reds, at McKechnie. We lost 10-2. The clueless-at-the-plate problem is becoming alarming. These guys look like they do not have ANY idea how to approach an at-bat. It's not a question of having their bat speed up to snuff yet, or reaction time, or power stroke. It's about LOOKING LIKE BRAINLESS IDIOTS WHO HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THEY ARE DOING UP THERE. Do we not employ hitting coaches on this team? Was not our manager allegedly a hitting coach himself once? I'd be fining people's asses for swinging blindly at bad first pitches about now, it's just awful to see. My game notes are a bit scribbly but I think there was only one inning where we didn't go down with either just 3 or 4 batters appearing, and there were very few deep counts on anyone all day.
And as if that wasn't bad enough, look who was the first player I saw on the field when we arrived during Reds warmups...
Oh Joe, I miss you so much! I never even liked that Ramirez guy who took your place in the first place, and now look, we don't have him anymore either anyway. Burn in hell all over again some more, Cam Bonifay.
The Pirate pitching was adequate (didn't seem as bad as the score would indicate, although Kirk Bullinger stunk up the joint). Frequent pitching changes so hard to do any justice to stats. Defensively, we had 3 errors as well as several other misplayed balls (Grieve, Rajai Davis, Grieve again).
Here's Joe again, at bat against Todd Ritchie at the beginning of the game. Gives you a nice idea of the very good season tickets we get to use at McKechnie, as long as you don't mind looking through the screen. My photo is a little bit zoomed in, but not much. It is nice to have friends.
Game Two was the other split of the split squad, but there was a lot of overlap so this was rather a misnomer, it was just a home-and-home day-night double-header, as I would call it. Two for the price of two. This one was at Ed Smith Stadium, a dozen miles down Route 301 in Sarasota. Nice little park, although the food was limited in selection and pretty crappy in quality (the pizza is highly un-recommended, and the beer was $5.75). We bought general admission tickets but were told by the section usher that since there were lots of empty seats, it was okay to move into the main seating area, even before the game started. So we did.
I cannot explain the score other than to say it was due to some sucky Reds pitching and probably some hidden vigorish kicking in, but we won the nightcap 12-1. The whole game was strange, beginning with Dick Vitale walking right past me before the first pitch was thrown. Dick Vitale?? I was informed that he lives on nearby Siesta Key, so is a local resident. Shouldn't he be somewhere covering basketball games? Oh well, who am I to tell him how to spend his time.
6 Bucco runs in the 3rd, including a 2-RBI single by Ian Snell who was pitching by then (Maholm started but only went 1 inning, like I said the pitchers were in Revolving Door mode all day today). 5 more runs in the 7th, including a 3-run homer by infielder Jose Leon. One more run as a solo homer in the 8th by Graham Koonce. Koonce has been a rare case of someone who has been impressive at the plate in the four games I've seen. And he's a lefty.
I've seen way more than enough of Cesar Crespo at short. Jack, please finish healing. Fast.
After the game the Cincinnati folks put on a 'Fireworks Extravaganza'. It was... extravagant. Well, not bad for a small park in March, at any rate.
Tomorrow (Tuesday) it's likely to rain, at least in the morning. Wilbur says they are quick to cancel games down here since the fields drain so poorly, but we have our fingers crossed. Last year there was no rain the whole time we were in Florida, so I've yet to deal with a rainout. More hidden vigorish? I hope not.
Sunday, March 06, 2005
Bradenton: Sun. 3/6
More sunny weather, more insufficient run production. I sense a trend.
Our Day:
Went out to Pirate City at 8am, hoping to take video of stretching and flexibility drills. No luck. DogBoy talked to one of the grounds guys who was putzing around, and the guy said that the players report at 8am for their workday in one of the large areas inside, then usually split into position groups for inside warmups and meetings and stuff, then come outside around 9:30 to start hitting or throwing around. And on home game days, they do all their warmups and BP at McKechnie before the gates are opened to the spectators, so the upshot is that it isn't really going to be possible to videotape these drills for Andrey in Moscow like I had hoped. We may get lucky, Andrey, but I don't think it's likely.
We went to buy oranges next door at Mixon's, only to discover they are closed on Sunday. Shucks. So back to Pirate City, met up with Wilbur, and went into the front office to ask if the minor league rosters were printed and available, what with those kids starting to report today and tomorrow. No luck, they're not typed yet. We'll keep trying on those till we get them, so that we can start to figure out who has been let go or added within the organization, and get some numbers to connect with the new faces that we might be seeing in Altoona this year. Wilbur leaves on Tuesday and if we don't have them before he leaves, we'll be snailmailing him one. Vital information needed to keep up with his Scouting Report, after all.
11:30-ish, the three of us headed across the bay to St. Petersburg. Wilbur drove (thank you again Wilbur), and dropped DogBoy and I off at the Dali Museum. He then went a few blocks farther up the waterfront, to the Pirate game vs Tampa Bay at Progress Energy Park, a/k/a Al Lang Field.
DogBoy and I spent an hour and a half looking at the funky pictures. In addition to the fascinatingly surreal subject matter (he was a Surrealist after all, so that's not even a figure of speech), Dali was a technical master. You just can't believe the detail on some of the work, and sometimes at such tiny scales that he must have been painting with brushes that contained only a few hairs in them. I remember thinking the same thing after seeing The Persistence Of Memory a few years ago at the Museum of Modern Art in NYC (that's the painting with the melted watches - it is surprisingly small). The newest addition to the collection at this museum (put on display only TODAY!) is "Gala Contemplating The Mediterranean Sea Which At Twenty Meters Becomes A Portrait Of Abraham Lincoln - Homage to Rothko (Second Version)". It dates from 1976, so is one of his later works. It's very large, and is in a room at the museum which has four other huge paintings in it (some of the links to these are here). For some reason, my two favorite pieces in the collection are not surrealist. One is an early landscape in beautiful sage greens (Cadaqués, from 1923), and the other a Cubist-inspired still life with a cut watermelon in it (Sandia, from 1924).
After we had finished with the Culture, we walked over to the ballpark, and snagged a couple of seats on the tippy top row just to the 3B side of the press box, which was one of the few areas in full shade under a concrete overhang. Leeeny is of the fair-skin-and-freckles complexion (sunscreen SPF 5000), and she does not wish to toast her delicate epidermis to a crackly crisp. We procured hotdogs and Pepsis for lunch, and were in our seats by the bottom of the third inning.
Progress Energy Park is a poured-concrete park right on the bayfront, nothing special but not horrid, sort of the Shea Stadium of the Grapefruit League due to a small airport right beside which had planes and helicopters coming and going at frequent intervals. The fans were friendly, and noisy in support of their team. Considering that TB is the only team in the bigs with a payroll lower (and an owner cheaper) than Pittsburgh's, it was sort of a case of Lame vs. Lamer. Guess who was who.
The fans gave very hearty boos with assorted catcalls to Ben Grieve ("You're still a bum!"). I was hoping to see B.J. Upton bat against Bryan Bullington, but alas, it was not to be. We did see Upton play a few innings though - he looks like a real keeper (which is not something I can say about BB, so far anyway). Wilbur thinks the Pirates would never let BB pitch to BJ if they could help it, just because they'd know it would set off a frenzy of media commentary on the comparisons between the two (and BJ might light BB up, causing even further loss of face). Wilbur sat behind home plate with Littlefield close by on one side of him and Cam Bonifay on the other, which he said was rather surreal. Said they didn't even acknowledge each other's presence.
Cota and Doumit caught, and between the two of them and the middle infielders (Guzman and Crespo), managed to screw up a whole bunch of attempts to throw out runners at second (although Cota did have one good throw which caught Carl Crawford, much to the dismay of the Rays fans). A couple of Doumit's balls ended up in center field, with Rays batters chugging to third. Why Guzman and Crespo played the entire game, I have no idea. McClendon didn't even pinch-hit for them in the top of the ninth, which I found inexplicable. I have a feeling I am going to be seriously annoyed with Lloyd's managing this year. And if he gets another extension, I bet you'll see me rant about it.
Final score of the game was 5-3. I didn't keep any notes so go look up the details here or here (Pirates site) if you want them.
Dining Out: Last night was the Anna Maria Oyster Bar on Cortez, where many Ostrea eduli made the ultimate sacrifice, both raw and Rockefellered. Tonight was the Mexicali Border Cafe, also on Cortez (across from the Wal-Mart), where the Cuervo 1800 Margarita was excellent, and the food and the prices were both quite good.
Tomorrow is a two-game day, split squads vs. Cincinnati, 1pm at McKechnie and 7pm at Ed Smith in Sarasota. We shall be at both.
Our Day:
Went out to Pirate City at 8am, hoping to take video of stretching and flexibility drills. No luck. DogBoy talked to one of the grounds guys who was putzing around, and the guy said that the players report at 8am for their workday in one of the large areas inside, then usually split into position groups for inside warmups and meetings and stuff, then come outside around 9:30 to start hitting or throwing around. And on home game days, they do all their warmups and BP at McKechnie before the gates are opened to the spectators, so the upshot is that it isn't really going to be possible to videotape these drills for Andrey in Moscow like I had hoped. We may get lucky, Andrey, but I don't think it's likely.
We went to buy oranges next door at Mixon's, only to discover they are closed on Sunday. Shucks. So back to Pirate City, met up with Wilbur, and went into the front office to ask if the minor league rosters were printed and available, what with those kids starting to report today and tomorrow. No luck, they're not typed yet. We'll keep trying on those till we get them, so that we can start to figure out who has been let go or added within the organization, and get some numbers to connect with the new faces that we might be seeing in Altoona this year. Wilbur leaves on Tuesday and if we don't have them before he leaves, we'll be snailmailing him one. Vital information needed to keep up with his Scouting Report, after all.
11:30-ish, the three of us headed across the bay to St. Petersburg. Wilbur drove (thank you again Wilbur), and dropped DogBoy and I off at the Dali Museum. He then went a few blocks farther up the waterfront, to the Pirate game vs Tampa Bay at Progress Energy Park, a/k/a Al Lang Field.
DogBoy and I spent an hour and a half looking at the funky pictures. In addition to the fascinatingly surreal subject matter (he was a Surrealist after all, so that's not even a figure of speech), Dali was a technical master. You just can't believe the detail on some of the work, and sometimes at such tiny scales that he must have been painting with brushes that contained only a few hairs in them. I remember thinking the same thing after seeing The Persistence Of Memory a few years ago at the Museum of Modern Art in NYC (that's the painting with the melted watches - it is surprisingly small). The newest addition to the collection at this museum (put on display only TODAY!) is "Gala Contemplating The Mediterranean Sea Which At Twenty Meters Becomes A Portrait Of Abraham Lincoln - Homage to Rothko (Second Version)". It dates from 1976, so is one of his later works. It's very large, and is in a room at the museum which has four other huge paintings in it (some of the links to these are here). For some reason, my two favorite pieces in the collection are not surrealist. One is an early landscape in beautiful sage greens (Cadaqués, from 1923), and the other a Cubist-inspired still life with a cut watermelon in it (Sandia, from 1924).
After we had finished with the Culture, we walked over to the ballpark, and snagged a couple of seats on the tippy top row just to the 3B side of the press box, which was one of the few areas in full shade under a concrete overhang. Leeeny is of the fair-skin-and-freckles complexion (sunscreen SPF 5000), and she does not wish to toast her delicate epidermis to a crackly crisp. We procured hotdogs and Pepsis for lunch, and were in our seats by the bottom of the third inning.
Progress Energy Park is a poured-concrete park right on the bayfront, nothing special but not horrid, sort of the Shea Stadium of the Grapefruit League due to a small airport right beside which had planes and helicopters coming and going at frequent intervals. The fans were friendly, and noisy in support of their team. Considering that TB is the only team in the bigs with a payroll lower (and an owner cheaper) than Pittsburgh's, it was sort of a case of Lame vs. Lamer. Guess who was who.
The fans gave very hearty boos with assorted catcalls to Ben Grieve ("You're still a bum!"). I was hoping to see B.J. Upton bat against Bryan Bullington, but alas, it was not to be. We did see Upton play a few innings though - he looks like a real keeper (which is not something I can say about BB, so far anyway). Wilbur thinks the Pirates would never let BB pitch to BJ if they could help it, just because they'd know it would set off a frenzy of media commentary on the comparisons between the two (and BJ might light BB up, causing even further loss of face). Wilbur sat behind home plate with Littlefield close by on one side of him and Cam Bonifay on the other, which he said was rather surreal. Said they didn't even acknowledge each other's presence.
Cota and Doumit caught, and between the two of them and the middle infielders (Guzman and Crespo), managed to screw up a whole bunch of attempts to throw out runners at second (although Cota did have one good throw which caught Carl Crawford, much to the dismay of the Rays fans). A couple of Doumit's balls ended up in center field, with Rays batters chugging to third. Why Guzman and Crespo played the entire game, I have no idea. McClendon didn't even pinch-hit for them in the top of the ninth, which I found inexplicable. I have a feeling I am going to be seriously annoyed with Lloyd's managing this year. And if he gets another extension, I bet you'll see me rant about it.
Final score of the game was 5-3. I didn't keep any notes so go look up the details here or here (Pirates site) if you want them.
Dining Out: Last night was the Anna Maria Oyster Bar on Cortez, where many Ostrea eduli made the ultimate sacrifice, both raw and Rockefellered. Tonight was the Mexicali Border Cafe, also on Cortez (across from the Wal-Mart), where the Cuervo 1800 Margarita was excellent, and the food and the prices were both quite good.
Tomorrow is a two-game day, split squads vs. Cincinnati, 1pm at McKechnie and 7pm at Ed Smith in Sarasota. We shall be at both.
Saturday, March 05, 2005
Bradenton: Sat. 3/5
There is no such thing as a bad ballgame when you get to escape the Pennsylvania winter at the beginning of March, and come to Florida to watch it.
But today came mighty close. A 6-2 loss to the Twins, and the Bucco bats were nearly as frigid as the winter I just got away from. Our runs came on a solo 8th-inning homer by non-roster-invitee Graham Koonce, and a solo 9th-inning homer by Bobby Hill, otherwise we'd have been blanked. 4 total hits including the pair of homers. Anemic, anemic. "It's early in March, so the pitchers are ahead of the hitters." I might have to repeat this to myself a good bit this week, so as not to be depressed.
Random things:
· Josh Fogg - 3 innings, 2 hits, 3 Ks. Respectable outing.
· Zach Duke - 2 innings, 4 hits, 3 ER, 1 BB, 1 K. Seemed to get flustered when guys got on early, then couldn't knuckle down to limit the damage. I've seen him pitch infinitely better in Altoona last year.
· Jeff Miller - 1 inning, 2 hits, 3 runs (2 earned), 2 BBs. Ugly.
· Michael Cuddyer (Twins' 3B) made two outstanding plays to snag grounders and throw to first for outs.
· Jose Castillo had a starred play too, throwing out Joe Mauer in the 5th.
· Benito Santiago - 2 misplays that I scored as passed balls (I can't find any box scores online that indicate whether they were or not, officially), and a damn ugly swinging strikeout in the 5th. BLEAH. I don't even want to think about the horrors to ensue if this is indicative of what we're going to see from Il Duce this year. (Does anyone call him by this nickname? I have decided that I shall.) DogBoy said to me, "He sure has the reaction-times of a 40 year old, doesn't he." Oy.
· Koonce and Elder seem like very similar players, in the mold of Daryle Ward, with Koonce batting lefty like Ward, while Elder is a righty. I would assume that one will be at Indy and the other at Altoona, perhaps depending on who has the better spring, or maybe Koonce goes to Indy by default due to his age. Koonce turns 30 in mid-May, Ward in late June. Wilbur (Miller) says he'd take Koonce over Ward. Eldred will be 25 in July.
Weather was sunny and about 70°F but rather windy, and our seats are in the shade so it was a bit nippy. Jackets zipped up. I'll take my camera to Monday's game and shoot some pix, and see if I can stand to upload them via dialup.
Tomorrow (Sunday): we plan to be at Pirate City early to see if we can film some stretching exercises for Andrey (no guarantees Andrey, I have no idea if they do those there before an away game), then next door to Mixon's (Fruit Farm), then Wilbur is generously taxi-ing us across the river to St. Pete so that we can go to the Salvador Dali Museum while he attends the Bucs-at-Tampa-Bay game. We didn't get to see this museum last year (long story, never mind), so I'm willing to give up a ballgame in order to finally see the artwork.
I knew that starting that series of posts on Bullington's pitching stats right before I left home was a bad idea, since I doubt I am going to get to the rest of them until I get back to PA. Not sure it's even worth doing now, but we'll see. Anyway, that's why parts 2 and 3 haven't shown up yet.
I am soooooooo happy to be here. All that's missing is the blooming of the orange blossoms, but it's a bit too early. Don't know if they'll open up before we leave next Friday.
But today came mighty close. A 6-2 loss to the Twins, and the Bucco bats were nearly as frigid as the winter I just got away from. Our runs came on a solo 8th-inning homer by non-roster-invitee Graham Koonce, and a solo 9th-inning homer by Bobby Hill, otherwise we'd have been blanked. 4 total hits including the pair of homers. Anemic, anemic. "It's early in March, so the pitchers are ahead of the hitters." I might have to repeat this to myself a good bit this week, so as not to be depressed.
Random things:
· Josh Fogg - 3 innings, 2 hits, 3 Ks. Respectable outing.
· Zach Duke - 2 innings, 4 hits, 3 ER, 1 BB, 1 K. Seemed to get flustered when guys got on early, then couldn't knuckle down to limit the damage. I've seen him pitch infinitely better in Altoona last year.
· Jeff Miller - 1 inning, 2 hits, 3 runs (2 earned), 2 BBs. Ugly.
· Michael Cuddyer (Twins' 3B) made two outstanding plays to snag grounders and throw to first for outs.
· Jose Castillo had a starred play too, throwing out Joe Mauer in the 5th.
· Benito Santiago - 2 misplays that I scored as passed balls (I can't find any box scores online that indicate whether they were or not, officially), and a damn ugly swinging strikeout in the 5th. BLEAH. I don't even want to think about the horrors to ensue if this is indicative of what we're going to see from Il Duce this year. (Does anyone call him by this nickname? I have decided that I shall.) DogBoy said to me, "He sure has the reaction-times of a 40 year old, doesn't he." Oy.
· Koonce and Elder seem like very similar players, in the mold of Daryle Ward, with Koonce batting lefty like Ward, while Elder is a righty. I would assume that one will be at Indy and the other at Altoona, perhaps depending on who has the better spring, or maybe Koonce goes to Indy by default due to his age. Koonce turns 30 in mid-May, Ward in late June. Wilbur (Miller) says he'd take Koonce over Ward. Eldred will be 25 in July.
Weather was sunny and about 70°F but rather windy, and our seats are in the shade so it was a bit nippy. Jackets zipped up. I'll take my camera to Monday's game and shoot some pix, and see if I can stand to upload them via dialup.
Tomorrow (Sunday): we plan to be at Pirate City early to see if we can film some stretching exercises for Andrey (no guarantees Andrey, I have no idea if they do those there before an away game), then next door to Mixon's (Fruit Farm), then Wilbur is generously taxi-ing us across the river to St. Pete so that we can go to the Salvador Dali Museum while he attends the Bucs-at-Tampa-Bay game. We didn't get to see this museum last year (long story, never mind), so I'm willing to give up a ballgame in order to finally see the artwork.
I knew that starting that series of posts on Bullington's pitching stats right before I left home was a bad idea, since I doubt I am going to get to the rest of them until I get back to PA. Not sure it's even worth doing now, but we'll see. Anyway, that's why parts 2 and 3 haven't shown up yet.
I am soooooooo happy to be here. All that's missing is the blooming of the orange blossoms, but it's a bit too early. Don't know if they'll open up before we leave next Friday.
