Baseball thoughts

Gees, it's been quiet around here over the past few days, no? I have a whole another list of European observations - but that will have to wait for another post.

Some thoughts on baseball after the first 10 games of the season (some of you poor saps may have already played 15 or 16 games...)

1) Who are the following people and what do they have in common:
Chase Wright
Kaz Izawa
Darrell Rastner

ok - that was easy. Those are the starting pitchers for the Yanks goign against the TRibe this week. And I'm scared shitless. We NEVER do well against no-name pitchers. I can't tell you how many times Bob Pecozzi opens up SportsCenter on the radio in the morning with a lead something like:

"In the American League, Derek Zahn, a lefthander called up fron Double-AA Edmonton last night, pitcjed 7 1/3 innings of 4-hit ball as the Rangers beat the Indians, 4-1....."

Exhibit A is the final week of the 2005 season, when Seth McClung - SETH McCLUNG - pitched a shutout against us in that awful, awful week where we finished one game out of a playoff spot.

I fully expect to lose all three to these stiffs. And we are 1/3 of the way there after Westbrook's performance.

2) The Tribe won, 2-1, vs. teh White Sox on Sunday. A note from the game story

The last time the Indians won while getting one hit was on April 12, 1992.

This seemed fishy, so I checked - yes! This was the infamous Matt Young game - where we beat Boston 2-1 while being NO HIT by Matt Young. In two separate innings, Kenny Lofton (the 1992 AL Rookie of the Year - Pat Listach is just a figure in many sportswriter's imaginations) walked, stole second, was sacrificed over and scored on a SF.

Do Red Sox fans remember this game? Peter Gammons must have wrote a song about this. I remember exactly where I was during this game - it was a Sunday, I was in my dorm room catching up on studies after being gone the last 2 days to a golf tournament (the Wooster Parlor Open, Kermit - that was the year you and I played together). It was a beautiful spring day, about 65 degrees. I listened to most of the game on radio.

Am I insane for remembering these details?

(By the way, I just checked the game story - it has been fixed to read:

The last time the Indians won while getting one hit or less was on April 12, 1992, a 2-1 victory over Boston when they were no-hit by Red Sox pitcher Matt Young.)

But no mention of my score or Kermit's in the Wooster tournament.

3) I logged on to CNNsi today, saw that the lead story was an article about Jose Reyes and how he can be the next Jackie Robinson.

My first reaction - do I care? He plays in the NL - so I don't care. Go away.

Is that bad? I follow the AL now, and will follow the Reds on occasion ( I do live here, you know). Other than that? No - don't care.

4) T-ball update: I agreed to help coach Freddie's T-ball team. This team is made up of 6 and 7 year olds, most of whom have never played in organized baseball yet.

Some developments:
- Practice started at 10:30. At 11:10 on the first practice, an assistant coach was trying to teach some of the kids that if there is a runner on 1st and you are in the field, you can throw to second to get the force out.

Hello? A bit early, no? How about WAY too early???

- we have a 16 game schedule. 16 games! Games go from the end of April to late June. Two games a week. That is insane.

- A coach actually has encouraged our players to "chop" down on the ball off the tee, because "that will make you hit grounders and you'll get a hit. We all do that, we should do well in our games....."
Um..... are we really keeping score in these games?

- Freddie was playing the pitcher position - and he actually fielded a gorund ball! Now - what to do with the ball? Well, he sees a runner running from 1st to 2nd - so he naturally aimed at the runner's head and fired the ball at the runner.

I'm sure that thought process has nothing to do with the fact that we play the "burnout" rule in the basement over the winter. Geesh, I have to make sure he unlearns that lesson quick.