Rays rookie dress-up - the picture is the story

As hellodes points out…“Imagine these guys snapping at your heels, their hot breath on your necks.”

It’s hard to add any words to explain this, as the Rays had their rookies (and a few others who hadn’t spent a full year in the majors such as Sam Fuld) get dressed up in costumes for today’s trip to Baltimore. From the left, that’s Brandon Guyer, Jose Lobaton, Cesar Ramos, Russ Canzler, Jeremy Hellickson, asst. trainer Mark Vinson, advance scout Mike Calitri, Sam Fuld, Desmond Jennings, ...

NL Wildcard race: September 14, 2011

ATL 86-64 [6-9 in SEPT]
STL 81-68 [9-4 in SEPT] (4.5 GB)

MLB.com: Braves rally past Fish; magic number at nine
MLB.com: Cards keep pace in Wild Card chase

Yahoo: Phillies clinch playoff spot behind Halladay

Roy Halladay pitched his 20th career shutout and the Philadelphia Phillies became the first team to reach the playoffs this season with a 1-0 victory over the Houston Astros on Wednesday.

The NL East leaders clinched at least a wild-card berth and will appear in the postseason for the fifth straight year.
..
The Phillies said this week there would be no champagne celebration for wrapping up the wild card, and when Halladay finished off Houston he and his teammates barely cracked a smile… ...

Tigers fans see sparks fly on foul tip, but catcher Alex Avila does not

Just when you think you’ve seen it all- this is pretty cool.

When Avila was asked about it after the game, he had no idea what media members were talking about. Avila said he never saw the sparks, which shot in several directions as a foul ball slammed into his mask…

It is unclear whether the ball hitting the mask or the ball forcing two parts of the mask to rub caused the sparks to fly.

Leskanic arrested on DUI charge

Leskanic, 44, who lives on Alaqua Drive in west Seminole County, had a blood-alcohol level of .331, more than four times the legal limit of .08, according to an arrest affidavit. The level was so high that he had to be checked out at a hospital before being booked into the Seminole County Jail.

.331 is higher than his career worst BABIP! Also:

He was found passed out at the wheel of his pickup truck on State Road 436 at Ronald Regan Boulevard with his 5-year-old daughter asleep, and ...

Big 2012 RNC-opening party will be at Tropicana Field, Rays’ schedule confirms

Will be odd to see people in the seats of Tropicana Field….

A few weeks ago we told you there was Buzz that organizers of the 2012 Republican National Convention in Tampa are planning to hold the big, opening media party at Tropicana Field.

Today the news is confirmed by—the Tampa Bay Rays’ 2012 schedule— which includes a rare Sunday off day on Aug. 26—to accomodate a Republican National Convention event. Our colleague Marc Topkin broke the news on The Heater blog.

The Rays will play a ...

MLB.com: Castrovince: 2012 Baseball Schedule Makes Avoiding November Baseball Problematic

The No. 1 takeaway from the schedule release, from my perspective, is that it ends on Oct. 3, with an intent again on wrapping up postseason play before the calendar flips to November. But it’s going to take either a five-game World Series or further condensing of the postseason schedule to make that intent a reality.

Thanks to the elimination of some unnecessary off-days, this season’s postseason schedule, which begins on Friday, Sept. 30, can last up to four weeks total, if the World Series ...

International Baseball Update: Rosters for Baseball World Cup start arriving

The Baseball World Cup, the second most prestigious tournament in international baseball competition, will be later this year in Panama. Some (at least preliminary) rosters are starting to be released.

Japan’s is made up of players from the Industrial and College leagues. NPB players generally only play in the WBC, (formerly) the Olympics, and maybe the Asian Games.

Australia’s includes former big leaguers, and all of the roster has at least some professional experience, either in North ...

NYT: In the Belly of the East

The glass case in the lobby of the Toronto Blue Jays’ executive office holds World Series trophies from 1992 and 1993. Between them is a small stand, just a few inches high, with a $1 coin. Cito Gaston, the manager of those teams, gave the coin to the receptionist for good luck when he retired two years ago. She displays it as a placeholder for the next trophy, because the coin is dated 1993.

Oh, for those days at the SkyDome, when every night was a party. The Blue Jays averaged more than ...

Keith Law: Moneyball

I’m sorta reminded of the time Effin’ Stink Lad (non-LOSH) cruised a dump on D.O.A.: A Rite of Passage because he was too close to the action.

Moneyball, the movie, is an absolute mess of a film, the type of muddled end product you’d expect from a project that took several years and went through multiple writers and directors. Even good performances by a cast of big names and some clever makeup work couldn’t save this movie, and if I hadnt been planning to review it, I would have walked ...

Salisbury: Manuel airs out Phils after loss to lowly Astros

Leapin’ Lamabe’s! Have the Astros officially changed their name to Lowly Astros?

Manuel had strong words for his team during a clubhouse meeting after it played another sloppy game in a 5-2 loss to the lowly Houston Astros on Tuesday night.

“We had a little talk,” Manuel admitted. “Not a big talk.”

The message:

“Just be more alert and play the game how we can,” he said.

Manuel was soft-selling the meeting. Word from the clubhouse was he rattled some cages pretty soundly.

...

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 9-14-2011

AP, September 14, 1986:

Bo Jackson will no doubt remember his first major-league home run.  The way he hit it, others will remember it, too.

“That ball was hit well over 500 feet,” said Royals interim manager Mike Ferraro after Jackson’s prodigious homer Sunday triggered the Royals to a 10-3 victory over the Seattle Mariners.  “I was in awe.  It was simply amazing.”

Officials said that Jackson’s 475-foot drive high onto a grassy knoll in left-center field was the longest hit at Royals Stadium. ...Read More...

Neutral Milk Dotel (Dan Lee) Posted: September 14, 2011 at 09:59 AM | 44 comment(s)
  Beats: dugout, history

MLB.com: Enter 600-man: Mo marks milestone

Yankees closer Mariano Rivera recorded his 600th save on Tuesday, preserving a 3-2 victory over the Mariners at Safeco Field and becoming just the second pitcher in history to reach that plateau.

Rivera joins Trevor Hoffman in the 600-save club as the 41-year-old right-hander inches closer to the all-time record. He needs just one more to tie Hoffman, who retired after last season.
...
“It’s a good number. There’s only one guy that has that, and that’s Trevor,” Rivera said. “It’s a good number ...

AL West race: September 13, 2011

TEX 84-64 [7-4 in SEPT]
LAA 81-67 [8-4 in SEPT] (3 GB)

MLB.com: Slugging Rangers keep pressure on Angels

David Murphy hit two home runs and Josh Hamilton smashed his 20th of the season in leading the Rangers to a 10-4 victory over the Indians on Tuesday.

MLB.com: Kendrick homers twice as Angels keep pace

Looking for an elixir after a pair of demoralizing losses, the Angels turned to Howard Kendrick, and he delivered a pair of two-run homers on Tuesday night to power a 6-3 victory over the ...

MLB.com: Verlander’s 23rd win cuts magic number to four

Justin Verlander won his 11th straight start to lead the Tigers to a 5-0 victory over the White Sox at U.S. Cellular Field on Tuesday, the club’s 11th straight win overall. The 11-game team winning streak is the longest for the Tigers since an identical run from Sept. 9-21, 1968, and lowered the Tigers’ magic number for clinching the division to four.

Verlander (23-5) became the first Tigers starter to win 11 straight starts since at least 1919, holding the White Sox scoreless in his seven ...

Tim Wakefield wins #200

It took a Major League-record nine tries, but Wakefield is now part of an elite group of 108 who have done it all-time. Only 89 have reached the mark since 1900, and just 69 have done it since 1920.

In a game that swung back-and-forth early, Wakefield went six innings, allowing five runs on six hits and two walks. He fanned six and allowed a pair of home runs.

AL Wildcard race: September 13, 2011

So the Red Sox are now 3-1 this month when they score in double digits, 0-8 otherwise.

BOS 86-61 [3-9 in SEPT]
TBR 82-65 [8-4 in SEPT] (4 GB)

MLB.com: Pedroia, Ellsbury help Wake get win No. 200

Led by Pedroia and the scorching hot Jacoby Ellsbury, the Red Sox cruised to an 18-6 win over the Blue Jays at Fenway Park on Tuesday, lifting the Major League’s oldest player to his 200th career win.

MLB.com: Rays miss chance to keep pressure on Sox

The Rays couldn’t hold a late one-run lead as the ...

NL Wildcard race: September 13, 2011

ATL 85-64 [5-9 in SEPT]
STL 80-68 [8-4 in SEPT] (4.5 GB)

MLB.com: McCann’s clutch dinger sparks Braves’ rout

With one mighty swing of his bat at Turner Field on Tuesday night, McCann erased doubts concerning his health and once again proved capable of putting his team on his shoulders when necessary. His three-run, sixth-inning homer off Brad Hand sparked a sputtering offense and allowed the Braves to snap a four-game losing streak with a 7-1 win over the Marlins.

MLB.com: Punto delivers ...

Griffin: AL’s most valuable has to be Verlander

Whitfield/Strong ~ Witless/Weak

I was discussing with my wildly worldly colleague Cathal Kelly, as we often do when we get together, the state of the global economy, of fashion, shoes, sports, the newspaper biz and the importance of good hygiene and social networking, when the topic of AL MVP arose.

Now, as regular readers know, I am a baseball traditionalist from way back, while Cathal is more of a VORP, WAR, WHIP, OPS guy. Thus it was no surprise to hear him preach confidently about how the ...

Bob Costas narrates the evolution of statistics in Behind the Seams: The Stat Story

Fluck…I just noticed my ‘68 Mantle card is smeared with some weird Costasian assgrease smeglemmer!

From awarding a player a base hit to the rise of sabermetrics, the evolution of statistics in Major League Baseball is the focus of Behind the Seams: The Stat Story, a special produced for MLB Network by MLB Productions, premiering Sunday, September 18 at 10:00 p.m. ET.

Behind the Seams: The Stat Story will feature statisticians and experts, including Elias Sports Bureau’s Steve Hirdt, MLB’s ...

ESPN: Baseball in Europe is about to take off

The unmistakable crack of a Louisville Slugger rings out over the Danube, that bluest of European rivers, snaking east from here all the way to the Black Sea after splicing up Vienna and Budapest and Belgrade and Bucharest. On the other bank lies Regensburg, a town of 130,000 that was founded in A.D. 90 as a Roman fort on the very edge of civilization, where the empire ended and barbarian wilderness began. The city is situated in the heart of the southeastern German state of Bavaria, tucked up ...

MSC: Baseball Greats Cruise

Boat

Enjoy interactive question-and-answer session with the players, player-hosted trivia games, a lively story-telling session in which the players share candid revelations about some of the “characters” of the game. There are also pitching, hitting, and defense strategy clinics and a lively passenger pitching contest. The host and MC for all of the onboard activities on each cruise is former Yankee star Stan Bahnsen. At the finale of the cruise there is also a COMPLIMENTARY AUTOGRAPH ...

SI.com: Verducci: Rivera’s Career a Study of Poetry in Motion

BBTF needs Mo’ poetry:

Like the stillness of a deep mountain lake under moonlight or the rustle of a breeze through treetops, there is a natural harmony to Mariano Rivera that is so quiet as to be easily missed. What distinguishes the great Rivera is as much the absence of features as it is what he possesses. Absence of effort, absence of ego, absence of extraneous motion, even absence of facial hair and the accoutrements of fending off fear used by the modern, highly-caffeinated, ...

Seamheads.com Negro League Database

Welcome to the Seamheads.com Negro Leagues Database, powered by The Baseball Gauge. We are creating the first comprehensive statistical encyclopedia of the great black baseball teams and leagues that operated behind the color line in the days of Jim Crow segregation.  The database also collects a vast amount of biographical information about these players, much of it previously unpublished.

Among the injustices visited upon the ballplayers of the Negro leagues, the lack of a statistical record ...

HardballTalk: Gleeman at the movies: “Moneyball” review

A Gleebert-length review.

As a hardcore baseball fan who paid close attention to Billy Beane and the A’s during the period portrayed in the film there were a lot of specifics that stood out as questionable, particularly in terms of the movie’s time lines and exaggerated portrayals of certain characters (although the book is guilty of the latter as well).

However, what the movie lacked in historical accuracy it made up for in witty dialogue, likable characters, and a surprising amount of ...

La Russa hates losing, loves overmanaging

Now Dotel is murder on right-handers, but struggles against lefties. So La Russa is setting himself up for a multiple-pitcher inning, no matter how Dotel fared against right-handers Andrew McCutchen and Derek Lee. Dotel got McCutchen, but walked Lee. Lefty Marc Rzepczynski was brought in to face switch-hitting Ryan Doumit. Like Dotel, Rzepczynski has a big platoon split (.491 OPS against lefties, .717 against righties). Doumit doubled into the right-field corner to tie the score.

Now came the ...

McCarron: Experts debate meaning of save No. 600 - Mariano Rivera

Experts, yes…but then they bring in Mitch Williams.

Some, however, believe that saves are an overvalued, overhyped stat that has created a class of wealthy relievers, pitchers who maybe wouldn’t have been as successful had they been starting pitchers.

...But one study, by Dave Smith of the website retrosheet.org, shows that winning percentages for teams carrying a lead into the ninth inning have not changed much over the years, including in one-run games. In other words, using a closer has ...

McCoy: Francisco’s 502-footer, four Reds homers not enough

The Real McCoy – Accept No Limitations!

When they designed and built Great American Ball Park, they had no idea they were building a comedy stage.

But they did. And the place is a joke. Balls fly out GABP like exploding atoms. They probably need a humidor here, too, like the one in which they place baseballs before games at Colorado’s Coors Field.

...SO NOW THE Reds have a league-leading 169 home runs. What good does it do? They are in third place and they are one loss or one Milwaukee ...

Puma: Selig: Mets never threatened over cap flap

A red-faced Bud Selig called the Mets on Sunday night, the commissioner of baseball irate that the organization had thrown his office “under the bus” in divulging MLB was responsible for the decision that banned players from wearing caps honoring emergency services workers during the 9/11 game at Citi Field.

“[Selig] got embarrassed by it,” a Mets official said before last night’s 3-2 loss to the Nationals. “The game got moved into prime time because of 9/11, and [MLB] ended up getting ...

Sullivan: Felix Hernandez Silences Yankees Trade Chatter By Getting Blasted By Yankees

You’ll laugh so hard your fantasy ERA/WHIP sides will ache…

And we built some narratives around it. Felix became a big-game pitcher. He became a guy who reached back for something extra whenever he went up against pinstripes. He became the Evil Empire’s worst enemy, an ace for whom they just didn’t have an answer.

Well, Felix might still be a big-game pitcher. I think he is still a big-game pitcher. And he might still reach back for something extra whenever he goes up against pinstripes. But ...