Entries Tagged 'Baseball' ↓

Caught this on the great sports site, Deadspin.com:

The Phillie Phanatic was attacked Saturday morning by 93.3 WMMR DJ and Sixers’ PA announcer Matt Cord’s dog Scout. Cord was on air covering the line at the Wachovia Center box office, where tickets for The Police, playing this summer at Citizens Bank Park, went on sale.

The Phanatic came outside of the Wachovia Center to start giving stuff away, when the mutt lunged at the lovable green goofball, prompting a man in line to shout that the dog “must be a Mets fan.” The Phanatic retreated inside the Wachovia Center until Cord safely put Scout back in his car.

I don’t know about you, but the image of the Phanatic running for his life out of fear of a dog just cracks me the hell up.

Thanks to my cousin Jeff, I got to go to an opening day baseball game for the first time in my life. It was a gloriously sunny, if somewhat blustery early spring day in Philadelphia. Our seats were twelve rows up on the first base side, just slightly beyond midway between first base and right field. It provided a great vantage point for some really good pictures, which you can check out by clicking on the photo above.

The Philbillies played well, winning 8-4 over the Washington Nationals. Today was the first game for the “Nats,” who you’ll remember were the Montreal Expos in a previous incarnation.

I had a great time, and even bumped into Wooly and Mitchell, who were busy standing out in Ashburn Alley, heckling the Nats relief pitchers.

Baseball’s back, and I couldn’t be happier.

Doing a Google image search for pictures of the newest of the new New York Mets, I found this image pretty quickly, far before I saw any of Beltran donning the blue and orange. It can be said, however, that this picture accurately describes the feelings of Mets fans everywhere in regard to the signing, myself included.

While some would say that the above picture is more representative of what Scott Boras did the Mets in the deal, I would not. The Mets only gave Beltran 10 million more dollars over 7 years than the Astros offer. All baseball players are overpaid, so it’s all relative anyway.

About the player himself, the Mets got a switchhitting, five-tool player and star in his prime. He is a hard worker, and not a prima donna by all accounts and I used to watch him play for the Blue Rocks. He will add more firepower to a lineup that has been seriously lacking offense the past three years, couple this with the potential signing of Carlos Delgado and the Mets are adding some serious ammunition to the lineup. The Mets starting pitching will be fine, especially with addition of Pedro. Their bullpen still needs work, but I believe that will be be addressed as well. The Mets have also quietly improved their bench, while their big free agent acquisitions have gotten all the attention. SI listed the Mets as #1 on their power poll this week, which you might say is ridiculous, but it is not unwarranted seeing how much the team has improved on paper this month and its before spring training so it’s all just water cooler fodder anyway.

Things are looking up for the Mets and not just more of the Mets being stupid with their money as the jealous haters like to say. The biggest reason for the Mets splash into the free agent pool this year has less to do with the back pages and more to do with the Mets’ media partnerships with Comcast and TimeWarner and the development of the their own cable network. It is imperative to put a team on the field at Shea that people will want to see for the network to succeed. Carlos Beltran will be the forefront of that buzz. With the success of the network, the Wilpons’ revenue stream will increase dramatically making the recent signings a good investment into a big return.

I have a few odds and ends I would like to address about the signing. Carlos answsered a question at the press conference that he was not willing to give the Yankees the time they wanted before they could offer him a deal, contrary to the NY P.O.S.t spin, calling him, “Yankee Reject.” Speaking of Yankees at Beltran’s press conference, 2 out 0f the first 3 questions were Yankee related. WTF, did these writers forget that the the Randy Johnson press conference started at 3pm and not 11am. A similar thing happened at the Pedro press conference. I can’t wait to the Mets take back NY ala the late 80’s so they can get some respeck. Speaking of the Big Unit, judging from the picture Mike posted, it looks like he traded in his mullet for a Hitler mustache, but it’s hard to tell with his hand in the way. Hey, whatever he needs to do to intimidate batters I guess.

It’s too early to say whether the Mets will challenge for the NL East this upcoming season, but they are already significantly better than they were at this point last year.

from Phillies.com

Free agent pitcher Jon Lieber, who won 14 games for the New York Yankees last season, has signed a three-year contract with the Phillies. The 34-year-old right-hander will receive a three-year, $21 million guaranteed contract.

Lieber posted a 14-8 record and 4.33 ERA in 27 starts in 2004. He ranked first in the American League with 0.9 walks per nine innings (18 walks in 176.2 innings). He was 5-0 with a 3.12 ERA in his final six starts and won seven of his last eight decisions.

Steriods scandal explodes as it’s revealed that Bonds and Giambi both admit use.

Recent news reports revealed that baseball superstars Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants and Jason Giambi of the New York Yankees have both admitted during a grand jury investigation to the use of multiple steriods provided by the BALCO company of Oakland, CA.

I’ll leave the details to the press ( ESPN, CNNSI, FOX Sports), but suffice to say that my Giambi 25 shirt will now be used as a cleaning rag, and my Jason Giambi bobble-head doll is headed for the local dump, as will my Jason Giambi Hallmark Keepsake Christmas ornament.