GrillSgt's Firepit

Only the Cubbies!

Last September, Derrek Lee was forced out of a game because of neck spasms induced by a celebratory slap to the side of his helmet. Now this. It can only happen to the Cubbies!

Freak injury time! Derrek Lee hurts back in chair collapse.

Big Mac, Big Story, Nothing New

By now everyone knows that Mark McGwire came clean. Told the world what we really already knew. I mean after all, we knew he was using androstenedione, which is the common precursor to male and female sex hormones [See Wikipedia for more information about androstenedione]. Even though andro is not an anabolic steroid, it was banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency and the Olympic Games.

Anyway, I’m not here to dissect Big Mac’s interview with Bob Costas; plenty of analysts, professional and amateur have already done that. At least I don’t intend to directly. I don’t condone the use of illegal drugs, including steroids. Nor do I condone what Mark McGwire did and what many others allegedly did. I will say that I think Mark McGwire was sincere and believed in his heart everything he said, including the statements that he would have hit those home runs anyway. We’ll never know if he could have, but he believed he would have anyway, and that’s enough for me. I will also say, I’m a Mark McGwire fan; but I’m not being prejudicial in this post.
Continue reading Big Mac, Big Story, Nothing New…

World Baseball Classic

Last night was the first and only night that I had a chance to catch any of the World Baseball Classic games. I watched Japan beat USA 9-4. USA played alright, but it was obvious that USA wasn’t completely ready for the level of competition that the World Baseball Classic brings.

The announcers attributed much of this to the fact that the USA players are essentially in Spring Training mode. They also discussed that the USA manager, this year it was Davey Johnson, is somewhat handcuffed by MLB and MLB teams/managers because it’s Spring Training for USA players. Their commentary made it sound like the other teams weren’t in Spring Training mode.

While this all may be true, there are major league players on virtually every squad, maybe not as many on the USA team, but there are still some. The Latin teams, such as Puerto Rico and Venezuela, have a significant number of MLB players on their rosters. Japan has Dice-K and Ichiro. MLB players on other teams are also, to a certain extent, in Spring Training mode. While it is true that many of the Latin players play in fall and winter leagues in their home countries after the MLB season is complete, not all of them do.

There was some discussion about how other countries are catching up to the USA in the quality of their baseball. This is probably true. Baseball is becoming quite the international sport and other countries are putting more money into training facilities and developing amateur and professional leagues. However, I think that the main difference is in off-season preparation and desire.

It’s not that I think that USA players don’t want to win. Based on the comments I’ve read from participating players, they are passionate about participating. From my experience playing baseball and softball, I don’t think any athlete can just show up and go through the motions once games start, except perhaps Spring Training, when the primary focus is to get back into baseball conditioning, get timing down, work on improvements to fielding, pitching and hitting, prepare for the coming season and, sometimes, learn a new position (see Skip Shumaker of the St. Louis Cardinals). Once serious games start, professional athletes play to win. It’s in their nature. They have to be competitive and have the desire to win. If they don’t, they don’t play.

While the quality of baseball played in other parts of the world is improving dramatically and it is catching up to the USA, I don’t necessarily think it’s caught up with the USA completely. I think the USA’s less than stellar showing in various international competition is because of timing. The Olympics are held in the middle of the season, and MLB has yet to take a mid-season break to allow professional USA players participate, like the NHL has done. I also think that MLB teams are loathe to allow their high salary players participate for fear of injury. OK, but the NHL does. So does the NBA (although for the NBA, the Olympics are off-season). Therefore, USA’s best baseball players aren’t participating.

I also think the difference is in preparation for the World Baseball Classic. I’m not saying that USA players take the winter off and get lazy. But from some of the commentary I heard and things I read, it sounds like many of the international teams are preparing for the World Baseball Classic starting in November and December. Professional USA players are conditioned to begin preparation for their seasons in February and March, getting ready for the MLB season which starts at the beginning of April. They aren’t really ready for high-octane, ultra-competitive games in early and mid-March. For them, they’re still 3 weeks or so away from being “game-ready.”

I think if the USA team was to bring its players together and started training in December or January, they’d have their full 6-8 weeks of training before starting the World Baseball Classic tournament. While they wouldn’t have the benefit of live Spring Training game action, intra-squad scrimmages could help with that. Having this Winter Training might also help reduce the number of injuries. This year USA had a number of injuries: Chipper Jones, Kevin Youkilis, Dustin Pedroia, and several others. Injuries didn’t appear to be a problem for many international teams. From last night’s commentary, Japan had one or two injuries and South Korea had none.

Lastly, I think some of USA Baseball’s “problems” lie in the style of play. Japan plays Whiteyball. For those of you not familiar with Whiteyball, Whitey Herzog was the manager of the St. Louis Cardinals in the 1980s. His teams didn’t feature a lot of power hitters. In fact, Jack Clark was really the only regular home run threat. But he had a lot of good, sound fundamental players. Whiteyball was all about manufacturing runs: get on base, move the runner to second, and get him home. Whitey relied a lot on stolen bases, hit and run, run and hit, sacrifice bunts…the fundamentals. MLB baseball today is very reliant on home runs. Remember the commercials “Chicks dig the long ball.” In addition to earlier preparation, Team USA needs to work on manufacturing runs, doing the little things and not waiting for the three-run bomb.

So, there you have it. My take on USA Baseball in the World Baseball Classic. Start preparing earlier and work on manufacturing runs. Success should follow. Now if I could only get the softball team I play on to buy into this philosophy.

2009 Baseball Season

I’m ready (couldn’t you tell by the MLB standings widget I added the other day?). Are you?

Opening night is 05 April 2009:
Braves @ Phillies 8:00 PM EDT

Opening Day is 06 April 2009 with a full slate of games:
Mets @ Reds 1:10 PM EDT
Indians @ Rangers 2:05 PM EDT
Royals @ White Sox 2:05 PM EDT
Rays @ Red Sox 2:05 PM EDT
Rockies @ Diamondbacks 3:40 PM EDT
Yankees @ Orioles 4:05 PM EDT
Nationals @ Marlins 4:10 PM EDT
Pirates @ Cardinals 4:15 PM EDT
Cubs @ Astros 7:05 PM EDT
Dodgers @ Padres 7:05 PM EDT
Tigers @ Blue Jays 7:15 PM EDT
Mariners @ Twins 8:10 PM EDT
Athletics @ Angels 9:05 PM EDT

Opening Day Part 2 – 07 April 2009:
Brewers @ Giants 4:05 PM EDT
Plus 9 other games.

Go Redbirds!!!!!

I’m getting tickets for the Cardinals v. Nationals game on 02 May 2009 in Washington DC. Can’t wait…it’s been a while since I went to an MLB game in an MLB park.

Softball – Game 9

Last night we played Texas Catheters for the second time. Same result – we lost. This time 7-17. It was more or less a comedy of errors defensively. I had no fielding chances at 1st base. It seemed no one could catch the ball. Lots of errors and bad fielding decisions. That’s not to say there weren’t any good plays made, just not enough of them. Offensively, it took a couple of innings to get going. I was 2 for 2 with 2 singles, an RBI and a run scored. Next week we have a doubleheader.

Softball – Game 8

Optimism from our first win against Sam’s Club All-Stars quickly turned to disappointment. Playing Silverchair for the second time and looking for revenge from a 47-2 throttling, we met with a similar result as the first time around (although not as bad) as we lost 16-0. They aren’t the top team in the league, but they seem to play very well. They don’t make a lot of errors and they all can hit, including the ladies. We didn’t help ourselves either, making some errors on easy plays and allowing some walks. The game only lasted 3 1/2 innings. I didn’t start and because of the mercy/slaughter rule, I never got to play the field. I did have one at bat in the top of the 4th inning and laced a line drive between the right and right-center fielders that rolled to the fence. I ended up with a stand up triple. 20 years ago it would have been an inside-the-park home run. HA HA! Unfortunately, then next two batters grounded out and I was unable to score.

Halfway through the season, here’s my stats:
Batting
10 at bats
3 hits
1 single
1 double
1 triple

Batting Average – .300
Slugging Average – .600
On Base Percentage – .364
On Base + Slugging – .964

Fielding (all at 1st Base)
19 chances
17 putouts
1 assist
1 error
Fielding Percentage – .950

So halfway through the season, we are 1-7 and in 7th place, just ahead of Sam’s Club All-Stars. We’re playing better, but really could use more consistent pitching. We still give up too many walks. Otherwise, defensively and offensively we are playing much better. The errors are fewer and almost everyone is hitting better, especially the ladies. Hopefully the second half of the season will have more games ending up in the win column rather than the loss column.

Softball – Game 7

Woo Hoo! We finally won a game and are no longer cellar dwellars. We beat the Sam’s Club All-Stars 10-0. Everyone contributed in some way. Tony Marbury hit a 3-run homer, our team’s first of the year, well, sort of. It was the first one to be hit out of the park. Earlier in the season Matt Froelich hit an inside the park home run. I didn’t hit, going 0-2, but I had 5 putouts, including a low line drive from the game’s first batter. Definitely our best game of the year, although I will temper the enthusiasm a bit because the Sam’s Club team isn’t all that good. In fact, one of our player’s son had to fill in for Sam’s Club All-Stars because they didn’t have enough players to start. So rather than accept a forfeit, we loaned him out until their player arrived.

Still there is some optimism. We are playing better than we did at the beginning at the season. While I’m almost certain that we’ll win a second game (we play Sam’s Club All-Stars again toward the end of the season), I’m optimistic that we can beat one or more of the other teams in our last 9 games.

Softball – Game#6

Well, we’re still winless, 0-6. We lost again tonight, 15-4. Once again, I played 1st base. Not much action there tonight. I had 2 putouts, although one of the putouts was called against us… interference. Our pitcher stumbled into the baseline as I tagged the runner out, but the umpire ruled her safe because our pitcher tripped over his own feet into the baseline. Kind of a ticky tack call. She would have been out even if our pitcher hadn’t fallen. As usual, I only got one at bat… I walked so it wasn’t even an official at bat. I was left on base.

Next up is Sam’s Club All-Stars. We may have a shot at our first win. They have forfeited 3 of their 5 games and the other 2 they have had scores not unlike some of our worst games.

Softball – Game #5

This week’s game was against Spring Hill Baptist Church. As has been the case the last few games, we played pretty well throughout the game, except for one inning when we just couldn’t get the outs we needed to keep them from scoring bunches of runs. This time it was the 4th inning. We lost this game 15-3. Although he called a good game, the umpire didn’t help. In one at bat, we had runners on 1st and 2nd. Our batter hit a pop fly right on the line to 3rd base. Since it dropped fair (the lady playing third base didn’t catch it), it should have been called an infield fly and the batter out. But the umpire failed to call it. So, instead of having a male on first base with two outs, we now had a lady on seond base with two outs. It probably wouldn’t have mattered much, and perhaps the fact that it could have been a foul ball fooled the umpire into not calling the infield fly rule, but he blew that call.

Since I played the entire game the previous Sunday (Game #2), I rode the pine for this game and kept score. I don’t like sitting but we’ve got 13 guys on the team and coach tries to get everyone playing time, even if they aren’t very good. I’m sure I’ll be in the lineup next game against Second Street Swingers.

If you haven’t been keeping track, we’re now 0-5. The season stretches into mid-July, so I remain optimistic that we’ll win one eventually.

Softball – Game #2

Game #2 was against Texas Catheters. Once again, I played first base the second half of the game. Once again, the 5th inning was our downfall. We lost 22-4. I got one at bat. I hit a solid line drive over the first baseman’s head, but he made a good play and caught it.

We’re improving, but we always seem to have that one inning in which we just seem to let the other team score too many runs. I started working with our weaker hitters, especially the ladies. They are improving. I hope that means that they won’t be the automatic out anymore.