Lamberts: Catching up with former Detroit Tiger Steve Kemp

Nothing left to spill, I guess.

When I was looking up information about you on the internet, Wikipedia.com listed you as Steven “Ashtray” Kemp.

“That just goes to show you you can’t believe everything you read on the ‘net. My kids asked me about that once. Maybe some fan was mad at me about something and decided to give me a nickname. But I have no clue. I never smoked, so I have no idea where that came from.”

Have you read Stephen King’s book “Cujo” or are you familiar ...

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 8-11-2011

100-year-old newspaper war!

Youngstown Vindicator, August 10, 1911:

East Liverpool, Aug. 10.—Hugh Tate, first baseman for the Youngstown ball team playing here Wednesday afternoon, had his right wrist shattered by being struck with a fast shoot pitched by Richie of the local team.  Dr. J.L. Pyle…declared the bone in Tate’s wrist had been broken into at least ten pieces.

Not so fast, my friend.

Youngstown Vindicator, August 11, 1911:

The town of East Liverpool must be a wonderful place.  They ...

Slate: Why Are They Using Baseball Bats Instead of Cricket Bats in the U.K. Riots?

It’s the fault of all those baseball hooligans!

Many people in the U.K. seem to associate baseball bats with violence, perhaps on account of the long association between the two in American films (like The Warriors), television shows (like The Sopranos), and video games (like Grand Theft Auto). The idea of baseball-related combat has become so common in England that theater companies regularly call BaseballSoftballUK, the country’s development agency for the two sports, seeking bats for staged ...

Arizona Republic: Arizona Diamondbacks defeat Houston Astros to take NL West lead

And the Diamondbacks, by virtue of their 6-3 win at Chase Field on Wednesday night, really are a first-place team again. Coupled with San Francisco’s 9-2 loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates earlier in the day, the Diamondbacks leapfrogged the Giants, whom they now lead by a half-game in the NL West.

It was a game in which order was restored in the Diamondbacks’ universe. They had been hammered by these Astros on Monday and then needed every ounce of effort - and every inch of closer J.J. Putz’s ...

ESPN: C.J. Wilson rips A’s fans, mound

Rangers pitcher C.J. Wilson made it clear that he won’t have the Oakland A’s on his list of potential free-agent destinations this winter.

The lefty is slated to open a three-game series at Oakland on Friday night, and on Wednesday before the Rangers closed their homestand against the Seattle Mariners with a 4-3 loss, Wilson said he finds little to like about the team or its home on the east side of the Bay.

“I hate pitching there. The mound sucks, the fans suck. There’s no fans there,” ...

MLB.com: Hitting clinic welcomes Ubaldo to Cleveland

On Wednesday night, [Ubaldo] Jimenez made his much-anticipated home debut for the Indians in exactly that scenario. Facing Detroit in an integral game, Jimenez was the beneficiary of a wealth of offense, allowing him to settle in and shut down the Tigers in a 10-3 win at Progressive Field.

The victory shaved the first-place Tigers’ lead over the Tribe (58-56) to just two games in the American League Central.
...
The Indians have now beaten Detroit 13 consecutive times at home… Working with the ...

Yahoo: Wolf, Brewers beat Cards for 13th win in 14 games

Thus far, TLR’s psych-op campaign he unleashed last week in Milwaukee has been about as successful as the Bay of Pigs.

The Milwaukee Brewers showed no sense of satisfaction in the clubhouse, even though they’d just won for the 13th time in 14 games and appeared to be pulling away in the NL Central. Far from it.

After working eight sharp innings in a 5-1 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals on Wednesday night, Randy Wolf noted it’s still early. The Brewers are 8-3 against the Cardinals, ...

Florida Marlins OF Logan Morrison takes more jabs at DLed Hanley Ramirez

Logan the orator strikes again!

Having missed his eighth consecutive game Wednesday after spraining his left shoulder last week in New York, Ramirez will now sit out at least six more. For the second time this season the Marlins placed him on the disabled list. He is eligible to return for the start of a four-game series at San Diego, but will miss the next two three-game sets at home against the Giants and on the road at Colorado.

Logan Morrison talking about the team’s offensive struggles ...

Castle: Spectacular Santo statue reminds of HOF’s unfinished business

Sort of like those unfinished Omri Amrany clangers in Washington?

The impact of Ron Santo’s statue outside Wrigley Field goes far beyond sculptor Lou Cella’s spectacular three-color depiction of the third baseman, standing on one leg and leaning right, ready to fire the ball cross-body to first in his patented 1960s image.

The statue’s unveiling on a beautiful Wednesday afternoon spoke so much of Santo’s character and reach to the masses, who packed both Addison Street and Sheffield Avenue ...

SEC Charges Former Professional Baseball Player Doug DeCinces and Three Others with Insider Trading

Washington, D.C., Aug. 4, 2011 — The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged former professional baseball player Doug DeCinces and three others with insider trading ahead of a company buyout. The SEC alleges that DeCinces and his associates made more than $1.7 million in illegal profits when Abbott Park, Ill.-based Abbott Laboratories Inc. announced its plan to purchase Advanced Medical Optics Inc. through a tender offer.

The SEC alleges that DeCinces, who lives in Laguna Beach, ...

Jack Curry: It’s simple: A.J. Burnett needs to sit

But…but…how’s he supposed to catch Tim Wakefield on the active Wild Pitch list?! He’s only 15 behind in 1,267 less innings! NO FAIR!

If the Yankees took Posada’s job away from him, they should be able to take Burnett’s job away from him, too. Even if it’s a temporary move, the Yankees could tell Burnett that he’s being bypassed in the rotation for one turn to work with pitching coach Larry Rothschild to improve. The Yankees can tell Burnett that he’s important to their success, so ...

There’s no cryogenics in baseball! Icy technique seen strengthening wooden bats

Ted Williams/Richard Kuklinski…oh, the choices.

Over the past few decades, companies have shifted how they manufacture bats, resulting in an uptick in the number of splintered wooden bats in professional games. According to a published report, two entrepreneurs are working to fortify wooden bats as they endeavor to reduce the number of breaks that occur during Major League Baseball games.

...Nevertheless, two MLB fans, Jim Cortez and Greg Kendra, have developed a method they affirm can help ...

Royals Release Kyle Davies

Time ran out Wednesday morning on the Royals’ willingness to wait for right-hander Kyle Davies to develop into a reliable starting pitcher.

The Royals requested unconditional release waivers on Davies, 27, in order to clear space on their 40-man roster for the arrival of catcher Salvador Perez from Class AAA Omaha.

Stephen A. Smith: Enough! It’s time for Jorge Posada to go

Cheez Doodles Puffed-up-ery!

Now it’s up to Posada to remind them of how it should be done.

It’s up to Posada to point out all the maneuvers that have been used against him and to elocute the classless way this organization has acted toward him at times.

It’s up to Posada, the catcher with 270 career homers and lifetime .273 batting average, to remind the Yankees that he wasn’t just a spectator during those five World Series championships.

It’s Posada who needs to talk about his love for ...

OC Register - Miller: Happy Garret Richards Day. Here’s What to Expect.

I’m submitting this for two reasons.  First, it is, in fact, Garret Richards day, and it’s newsworthy, especially seeing as how his debut comes against the vaunted Yankees.  Second, I’m not sure everyone is familiar with Sam Miller, who can be really fun to read, provided you don’t mind reading about the Angels.

• Garrett Richards knows that people hate slow baseball games, so he throws only as many pitches as necessary. Over his past 10 games, he has averaged a touch more than seven innings ...

Signs of trouble in Toronto

“Not too easy, is it?”

From the visitors bullpen at Rogers Centre in Toronto, an American League pitcher screamed at Blue Jays right fielder Jose Bautista as he took his position late in a game in the spring of 2010.

“It’s not too [f———] easy to hit home runs when you don’t know what’s coming!”
“We know what you’re doing,” he said, referring to the man in white, according to the player and two witnesses. “If you do it again, I’m going to hit you in the [f———] head.”

Personally I don’t buy ...

Baseball’s Toronto Blue Jays Under Suspicion For Stealing Signs

This makes Aaron Hill look even crappier.

Not too easy, is it?”

From the visitors bullpen at Rogers Centre in Toronto, an American League pitcher screamed at Blue Jays right fielder Jose Bautista as he took his position late in a game in the spring of 2010.

“It’s not too [f———] easy to hit home runs when you don’t know what’s coming!”

The enraged player and his teammates could hardly believe what they had seen in the previous inning. As they sat on the perch above the right-field bullpen at ...

ESPN article claiming Jays are stealing signs

The Cardinals have levied the same accusations against the Brewers.

ESPN: Meyers: The folly of Angels’ Mike Scioscia (INSIDER)

It’s hard to overstate just how poor a hitter Mathis truly is. For his career, he has a .197 batting average in 1,299 plate appearances. According to Baseball Reference, there have been just three others players in history to amass 1,300 PAs while batting below the Mendoza Line, and two of them, Mike Ryan and Ray Oyler spent a much of their careers in the 1960s, arguably the most pitcher-friendly era in baseball history. (Even the guy for whom the Mendoza Line was named actually had a career ...

OT: NBA Monthly Thread VII - August 2011

I estimate only 10-12 Primates care about the NBA, but with our own thread, we won’t detract from what this site is really about: whatever the hell is going on in that birther thread which I’m afraid to click on, and whether or not ballpark proposals are a great idea or the greatest idea.

(Link is to last month’s thread.)

Draft pick Houchins unlikely to sign with Nats

Shortstop Zach Houchins, a 15th-round selection in the 2011 First-Year Player Draft, said Monday it is unlikely that he will sign a professional contract with the Nationals.

Houchins said he hasn’t heard from the club since June after it was discovered that he made what were deemed racist and homophobic remarks on his Twitter page.

Teams have until 12:01 a.m. ET on Tuesday, Aug. 16, to come to terms with their draftees, meaning official notification has to be in the Commissioner’s Office when ...

Talking Chop:  Braves release Proctor, promote Vizcaino

Scott Proctor has been released, although the humane thing to do would be to take him out back, shoot him like a broken horse, and then shave that damned porn ‘stache off of his corpse.

Arodys Vizcaino called up to take his spot in the bullpen.  Randall Delgado is the lone member of the “Four Horsemen” to have not been called up in some role to date.

HBT: Two MLB.com writers robbed at gunpoint at Great American

MLB.com’s Barry Bloom and Thomas Harding were robbed at 1:30 a.m. this morning about 15 feet outside Gate 3 at Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati, Hal McCoy of the Dayton Daily News reports.

“I thought the guy was a fan as he approached, but he said, ‘We can do this the easy way or the hard way,’” said Bloom. “I started to walk away and he began yelling at me and pulled this big gun that looked like a Glock. He said, ‘Put your wallets on the ground.’ We did and he picked ...

Rushin: Watching a baseball game has become a marathon

_ _ _ (Where Angels Fear to Tread).

But chances are your leisure time is finite, and so is the patience of your family, and you might be forced to choose between watching a four-hour Sox-Yankees game or doing something that doesn’t take nearly as long, like writing She Loves You (as Lennon and McCartney did in three hours) or performing a kidney transplant (which can be done in two to three hours).

Yes, you and I are unlikely to save a life—or create an enduring work of art—in lieu of ...

Petti: Sabermetrics isn’t a tool, it’s a mindset

Whoa, thought that read “Sabermetrician is a tool”...and that they were dredging the statistically-polluted East River for an old quote from John Sterling about Rob Neyer!

It isn’t often that I disagree with Tango, but I would (albeit slightly) with this statement:

  Sabermetrics is a process, a tool.  It is not an ideology.  Sabermetrics would say that a player’s RBI adds no new information, once you know all these other things.  Sabermetrics would say that a pitcher’s wins, losses and ...

Cincinnati: Official Opening Day holiday looks doomed

“I wanna be classified
I wanna be a statistic
I wanna be a clone
I want a suburban home”

A proposal to declare Opening Day a ceremonial holiday in Cincinnati - an idea supporters felt was a sure hit in the birthplace of professional baseball - appears unlikely to qualify for the November ballot.

With thousands of petition signatures having been thrown out, the chance of Cincinnatians voting this fall on the initiative looks about as promising as the 10-games-out-and-dropping-fast Reds making ...

L.A. Times: Former Angels Scouting Director Eddie Bane Goes Public

The Angels had four of the first 42 picks [in 2009]. Mike Trout, the outfielder considered one of the two best prospects in baseball, was one. Tyler Skaggs, the pitcher who was the key to the Dan Haren trade, was another. So was [Garrett] Richards.

Eddie Bane, the scouting director at the time, was fired last winter by General Manager Tony Reagins. The Angels did not publicly explain the decision.

Bane said he does not accept the reason Reagins gave him — that the Angels’ recent drafts ...

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 8-10-2011

Youngstown Vindicator, August 10, 1911:

A fine deal was put through by [Youngstown] Manager Phillips Wednesday when he sold Scott, Sheer and Tate to Washington on an optional agreement with the understanding that if they make good the Steelmen are to receive a neat figure for the fast trio.

And elsewhere on the same page...

East Liverpool, Aug. 10.—Hugh Tate, first baseman for the Youngstown ball team playing here Wednesday afternoon, had his right wrist shattered by being struck with a fast ...

Milwaukee J-S blog: Freak accident shelves Narveson

Another addition to the “Dumb Injury Hall of Fame”.

A freak accident in the clubhouse during their 5-3 win over the St. Louis Cardinals on Tuesday night has knocked one the Milwaukee Brewers’ starters out of his next turn in the rotation.

Left-hander Chris Narveson was trying to fix some laces on his glove with a pair of scissors when his hand somehow slipped. He sliced the tip of his left thumb deeply enough that he had to have eight stitches, and left Busch Stadium with his digit bandaged ...

MLB.com: Wang stifles Cubs for first win since 2009

After two shaky starts, Chien-Ming Wang showed on Tuesday night that he still has life in his right arm as the Nationals beat the Cubs, 3-1, at Wrigley Field.

How good was Wang on this day? He looked like the pitcher who won a combined 38 games for the Yankees in 2006 and ‘07. In fact, he had a no-hitter after five innings, broken up in the sixth, when pinch-hitter Tony Campana led off the inning with an infield single.
...
It was Wang’s first victory since June 28, 2009, against the Mets.

...Read More...

NTNgod Posted: August 10, 2011 at 04:25 AM | 26 comment(s)
  Beats: game recaps, nationals