Borderline Fantastic Sports

These were back-to-back in my Twitter feed.

First, Nate Silver …

Detroit Tigers sign Prince Fielder for 9 years, $214M, per @JonHeymanCBS

— Nate Silver (@fivethirtyeight) January 24, 2012

Then, MLB …

OFFICIAL: @Athletics agree to terms with RHP Bartolo Colon on 1-year contract.

— MLB (@MLB) January 24, 2012

It’s like the same thing repeated. Obviously, teams are at different points in their signing process, so these shouldn’t be compared. But just the fact that they posted so close to each other, and the A’s would never have the chance to sign Price, makes it somewhat interesting.

The Memphis Redbirds (Cardinals AAA) are having Organ Donor Night where they will wear these sweet jerseys:

If you are an organ donor, you are entered to win some prizes, including a keyboard organ (those crazy marketers).

Redbirds Info
Saw this on Uni Watch

I saw part of a quote on SBNation and thought there must have been more to it. I found a more complete version here:

“I sure don’t think of myself as a fat person, just someone who carries extra weight. I’ve never seen anyone on the DL with pulled fat.” – Rod Beck

So simple. How is that not always the argument of heavy athletes? “I’d put on muscle, but all you hear about is guys pulling muscles.” Nice work Rod Beck on this quote that must be 20 years old that I just heard today. Sure hope RB knows about Google Alerts. He’ll be pretty excited today.

By now you’ve read the talk about the potential realignment for baseball. A team moving to the AL. No more divisions. Interleague all the time. Stark’s Rumblings & Grumblings has a good conversation with Olney about it.

No one seems to be talking about solving some of this with expansion or contraction. I don’t think contraction will happen, but why not expansion?

It will take a bit of work. It might lead to more distance between the top teams and the bottom. If they wound up as small market losing teams it would be more competition with the likes of the Pirates and Royals at the top of the draft. My only suggestions to help with this, and this is just for fun, so these could be argued, would be a cap or lower luxury tax threshold, and reworking the draft. Having a global draft with limits on draft pick salaries is a must without my expansion suggestion.

My first shot at the new teams are Portland and Vegas. Rivals for the Mariners and DBacks. This would bring the total to 32 teams, 16 per league. Then the divisions can be divided up with 4 teams in each. For the playoffs there could be no wild card, or two with some sort of bye for the top division winners. Oh, and the World Series homefield is for the league with the better record in interleague, which I have been saying forever. Also, with an even number of teams in each league eliminates that odd NL-only matchup during interleague times of the season, which really screws with the out of town scoreboards.

While I’m making things up, might as well come up with the divisions.

I didn’t do anything drastic. Seems to fit pretty well. I probably screwed up some rivalries, but most of the geographical ones are still in place.

The Blue Jays had 3 triples in a row last night. 3! The best is the announcer saying ‘you don’t see that everyday’ after the 2nd one.

I love triples. I wanted them to be worth more than home runs in my fantasy league. I think we settled on them being worth the same.

More: Baseball Reference blog has some facts including the last time this happened was the Expos in 1981.икони

Somebody Should Explain The Concept Of A Walk Off Win To Chris Berman

Sadly, this can’t be much worse than the usual ESPN announcers. If the video gets taken down, the key quote is, “The Cardinals have seven walk-offs this year, most of them at home.” Ugh.

I watched some of Sunday Night Baseball and got to see how awful the new crew is. I had high hopes after getting rid of Morgan, but that also meant getting rid of Miller. I also had high hopes because when I was at ESPN a few months back and asked about that particular duo (I subtlety hinted how awful they were and the employee subtlety agreed with me) and was told things would be ‘different’. Which to me meant better.

Reading this article about a new exhibit at the Baseball Hall of Fame, I spotted a jersey in the background of this picture.

An Eric Bruntlett jersey? I know the triple play to end the game against the Mets was amazing to see and a big deal, but HOF worthy? Watching the video again … unassisted triple play to end a game. Ok. Oh, MLB had embed code …

Anyway, this new exhibit sounds pretty cool. Not that I need a reason to go to the HOF. I’ve been saying I would go every summer for the past few years. I haven’t been to Cooperstown since Schmidt and Ashburn were inducted. I have only been to the museum once, I think it was the year before that. So yea, it’s been a while. It was certainly in the plans for this summer before my internship came up.

Continuing catching up. This clip is from 4/18 but it qualifies for today (well, what would have been today an hour ago). The Phanatic threw out the first pitch on his birthday and hit his mom right in the mouth (?). She goes down and then charges the mound with other mascots holding her back.

I think Mrs. Phanatic made an appearance tonight. I look forward to some quality video tomorrow.

Phillie Phanatic plunks mom on birthday – 4/18.

It’s time to start clearing out my list of things to post. How crazy that the oldest thing on my list is a crazy balk by Justin Verlander from a few weeks ago. Tonight he had his 2nd career no-hitter. I managed to see the last out. I think it was overshadowed by the Kentucky Derby, so I didn’t hear about it any sooner than that.

This link (cause MLB doesn’t embed) shows that Verlander balk from April 16th. He does sort of a pickoff move toward home, but that’s a simplification. Everyone was confused. The umps had to conference to decide what to do.

A’s and Tigers get a laugh from balk sequence | MLB.com: News

My Ice Cream Helmets have never had a home. They were displayed on a shelf with my hats in my old room. I don’t even think they made the trip to my first apartment. Here at my current apartment, they found a shelf of their own next to my TV, but it was more of a pile than a display. I hadn’t really thought about it too hard, but my mom had.

She was talking to a patient of hers who does woodwork and somehow they hatched a plan for a project. My mom had originally wanted some sort of enclosed case that could be hung on the wall so that I didn’t have to worry about my helmets getting dusty. These aren’t the most high quality items. The logos come off pretty easily on some of them.

The guy thought about that idea, but thought it might be too heavy. He came up with his own design and made it out of a really light wood so they could be easily hung on the wall.

On Christmas morning, I was down to my last present. I hadn’t asked for too much and I had already opened those. So I was extra curious what could possibly be in my last box that was saved for after everyone else was done and mom had the camera ready.

My first question was how many could each one hold. Each has 16, he couldn’t come up with a good design to have 14 on the AL one and 16 on the NL one. Probably good. If there is another expansion, it should be to have 16 in each league. Any more than that and I’m in trouble, but I think I have some time.

I sent a picture over to Evan on Christmas morning and it was forwarded to his mom letting her know she should get in contact with my mom to place an order.

After being back to school for a week I finally had a chance to hang them up.

As for the helmets, I obviously have some work to do in the AL. If you consider the two fewer teams, they aren’t that far behind. It just looks more obvious because the corner spots aren’t filled yet.

I’m currently missing four helmets of places I have been:
Orioles – I’ve been to Camden Yards, but it was before I had started collecting the helmets. I’ve already looked at the schedule and found two promising weekends in April.
Giants, A’s, Dodgers – Something about California. The Padres were the only stadium to have helmets on the trip. We didn’t go to Anaheim, so I can’t speak for them. The A’s had helmets for popcorn and french fries. I have one of those larger helmets, but will not be putting it on this display. The Dodgers may have had them, but Evan bought the tickets for the outfield seats and you aren’t allowed to leave that section.