Trial Balloon
What do you think about the idea of Matsui becoming the everyday first baseman? Gets Giambi out of the field and frees up a slot for the Melk Man. Hopefully, the Yanks consider this one.
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What do you think about the idea of Matsui becoming the everyday first baseman? Gets Giambi out of the field and frees up a slot for the Melk Man. Hopefully, the Yanks consider this one.
Here's hoping you feel better.
Gary Sheffield is one unhappy camper. What's new? He's blustering how he doesn't want to play first base for the Yankees on a one-year deal or go to another team without a contract extension. Now in fairness to Sheff, the critics who say his position on the Yankees picking up his option has been inconsistent - he fumed in spring training when they didn't pick it up and is fuming now when they're ready to pick it up - his situation has changed. He thought he would be the right fielder next year, not the first baseman. The Abreu trade shifted the landscape. Still, Gary the Mouth should shut his. You have no leverage, Gary. None. You signed this contract without a no-trade clause and with a fourth-year team option. Your choice. Now you threaten to cause problems if it's picked up without additional years added to the end or you're forced to play first base? Tough noogies! You have no choice. It's either play or don't play. Cause problems and you kill your chances for a new contract. Cause problems and don't produce, and you kill your chances at 500 homeruns and a ticket to Cooperstown. So really, Gary, what I'd like to see more of from you is less. Go away and be a headache somewhere else.
Cross posted at Plum Crazy.
On becoming the worst team ever to win the World Series.
There has been much talk of the record low ratings of this year's World Series. Two solutions have been offered by the media. The first is to move the World Series to a warm weather climate. The other is to shorten the season to avoid the sudden change in weather that can make a Series game a miserably cold and uncomfortable experience. Before offering my own thoughts, let me say, "Fools!" We're talking about TV ratings. In the words of Tony Reali, host of ESPN's Around the Horn, I fail to see what the weather has to do with TV ratings.
Now onto my own thoughts. I'm not sure what to do about the low ratings. Not many people outside of St. Louis and Detroit care much about a Cardinals-Tigers series. There's understandably greater interest when a major media market team is in the mix. I suspect that baseball would do better, drawing ratings similar to the Super Bowl, if the Series was shorter and each game correspondingly more meaningful. Asking non-fans to endure seven games, vs. the one game of the Super Bowl, is a bit much. I, for example, watched the end of last night's game because it was the potential clincher for the Cardinals. However, no one is about to shorten the World Series.
Still, it's not a bad idea to shorten the season. Games should not last until the end of October when it gets downright chilly in northern climates. If I were Bud Selig for a day, I would shorten the regular season to 154 games; shrink the Wild Card round to best two of three, with the higher seeded team hosting all three games; and shorten the LCS back to three of five. That would cut two weeks off the season. Since none of that is happening, however, one solution to shortening the season is to have teams host more day-night doubleheaders. Toss in eight of them a season and you can cut the season by a week. The logistical difficulty is that they would have to be played on the weekend, otherwise, owners would balk at the lost gate receipts and TV ratings for the weekday portion of the double dip. I don't know if there are enough four-game series to make the idea workable for a week's worth of games.
Oh well, I guess have no real solution, other than mere fantasies of the way things should be. Wait, here's one. At a minimum play the weekend games of the LCS and World Series during the day. It would be nice to see some day baseball again.
Cross posted at Plum Crazy.
Lesley and I have a bet. The other day it was reported that the Yankees have no plans to trade A-Rod this off-season. Lesley believes he will still be traded. I don't. I offered her the following bet, provided that Judy agreed: if A-Rod is traded, we treat her and Alan to a game next year, concessions included. Otherwise, they treat us to a game next year. Judy has agreed.
Personally, I would like to see A-Rod traded. Not so much because I believe he can't produce in New York, which I do, but more because I'm sick of the drama. Sick of the stories, of the fans booing him every time he fails to come through for the Yankees. I find it stressful, and I'm just a fan. Imagine how A-Rod must feel.
Oy vey did I get my predictions wrong for the post-season. Every single series was I wrong on. I had the Yankees going all the way, taking down the Twins in the ALCS and the Padres in the World Series. And I had the Dodgers as the other team in the NLCS. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
I saw it this way. The Yankees had the pitching and the offense to win it all, that Santana would take two for the Twins and the Twins would find a way to get it done in one more game, that the Mets pitching was too shattered to stand up to the Dodgers pitching, and that the Padres had the best pitching in the NL. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
Still won't stop me from making predictions for the World Series. After seeing the Mets take down the Dodgers, I see no way they don't take the Cardinals easily in the NLCS. A's and Tigers is a compelling match-up. Good pitching on both sides of the ball. For the same reason the Tigers made me nervous going into the ALDS - Verlander, Rogers, and Bonderman - I like them in the ALCS.
Leaves Mets-Tigers in the World Series. My initial instinct is that the Tigers pitching shuts the Mets down, but the Mets have a talented, balanced, and young line-up - yes, the Yanks had a good line-up, too - one that has a player in Jose Reyes that will give the Tigers fits. He gets on and the dynamics of the game changes, and he has so many ways to get on. Mets in 6.
My other prediction? I will be wrong, wrong, wrong.
Cross-posted on Plum Crazy.
Way back in 2004, Lesley angered the baseball gods with her hubris after the Yankees took a 3-0 lead over the Red Sox in the ALCS. She declared the series over, annointed Hideki Matsui MVP, and went out and bought a Hideki Matsui shirt. Since then? The Yanks dropped dead against the Red Sox, lost to the Angels in round 1 last year, and folded against the Tigers this year. I have urged her on numerous occasions to burn that shirt. She refuses. The Yankees will not win another World Series championship until she does. It's the Curse of Godzilla.
Cross posted on Plum Crazy.