Baseball Ramblings

Ahhhh..baseball is in full swing and I'm missing all of it. Heard on the radio last week that Cox Cable is up and running on the MLB Package. Also saw a TV ad on Friday, so I decided to call and order it. They accepted my $159 and said that it was activated. I recorded the A's game on Saturday and went out to go grab something to eat with Ben and Carol, and came home and the game wasn't recorded. Just a black screen. Long story short, I ended up having a long conversation with a Cox Cable tech, discussing the ins and outs of the MLB deal with cable and me not believing it. He finally stated that he was watching the A's game there at the office so he knows that it is working and gave me the update that "some guy named Duchesser just gave up 3 runs for the A's", with me moaning into the phone and now getting even more pissed because the A's were cruising the entire game. In the end I had to control myself since I still needed this guys help. Now I have to wait until today for a cable guy to come out to fix our signal. If he doesn't show up, I might be ready to forgive Direct TV and go back to them.

I HATE ESPN- On Friday night I tried to catch my highlights on Baseball Tonight, right after the Yanks-Sox game. I waited for 45 minutes before they showed the A's highlights. How sad is that. They spent 30 minutes on the Yanks and Sox. What crap.

And can ESPN spend some time on other teams other than the Sox and Yanks? I know that this isn't anything new, but come on. Who is the best baseball team currently? Which pitching staff has had 18 out of 19 quality starts this season? And I agree with the Sportsguy on how disappointed he was with Morgan and Miller that they totally forgot about the Dodgers last year on their back to back to back to back homers off of Trevor Hoffman in the 9th inning, during a pennant race. This was absolutely amazing.

Now with that being said, I do have to say that I enjoyed the Yanks-Sox series this weekend. All were very good games and surprisingly they were relatively quick games, unlike last year, so I can't complain too much. I really do like a lot of the players, despite hating the teams themselves. Manny, aka The Predator, is probably my favorite. He really acts like someone playing in a backyard whiffle ball game. I know he doesn't need to sprint back to the wall to handle a wallball, but its just funny watching him trot back there and then bare hand the ball and whip it in. Big Papi is amazing and so much fun to watch hit that according to my friend Jeff, my golf swing looks just like his at the plate (that's not good). And Papelbon is simply amazing. I do find his stare to homeplate a little ridiculous. Maybe it was the extremely close up that ESPN was doing, but he looked like an idiot. As for the Yanks, am I the only non Yankee fan cheering for Arod (as long as it is not against my team)? And I'm simply fascinated with Abreu's gray glove.

Anyway, here are a couple of my additional thoughts after a month worth of baseball:

• I have never seen so many injuries to major players to start off a season. Just take the A's. Harden, Bradley, Kotsay, and Loiaza are the major injuries. I never thought I would see Marco Scutaro playing RF and Todd Walker playing 1st for us in a million years. Ouch.
• And yes, that stat is correct above. The A's have 18 out of 19 quality starts so far this year. And what is our record? 10-9. Simply amazing how banged up our team is. I should be happy with a 10-9 record, but I feel that our pitching will start to falter soon.
• The Sox should look inward and not do too much talking about what just happened. IF they can stay healthy, then they are probably the odds out favorite, but I'm sure that this will not happen.
• What is up with Tampa Bay's ownership? Are they the worst? Why haven't they traded one of their 1000 talented offensive guys for some bullpen help. It is painful to watch these guys pitch.
• As of right now I don't see any team running away with their division. Angels and A's will be there to the end in the West, Yanks and Sox with the possibility of the O's and Blue Jays in the East, and everyone except for the Royals in the Central. I think everyone in the NL West and NL Central has a chance, with the Braves, Marlins, and Mets going at it in the East. This should be a tremendous year for pennant races.