MLB All-Cannabis Team
1B Boo Powell
2B Buzzy Wares
SS Roxey Roach
3B Xander (Don't) Bogaerts
LF Ducky Hemp
CF Chilli Davis
RF Buzz Boyle
C Taylor Teagarden
PH Bert Weeden
RHP Lil Stoner, Tobi Stoner, Herb Hash
LHP Jung Bong, Josh Smoker
MGR Dusty Baked
Traitor Tracker: .261
Last year, this date: .291
Monday, April 20, 2020
A Team for Today
The Unnamed Temporary Sports Blog is back
Consider...
The Jameis Winston work-out video.
5 Classic Games that Remind Us of Why We Miss Sports
or my pers fave:
My God Grant Us an NFL Draft Full of Technical Disasters
Almost a feeling of normalcy.
Is a 2020 season still possible? Here's a timeline...
Obviously, I have no crystal ball. And if the virus brings a hellish second wave, the lords of the game might choose to - mixing sports here - punt.
But as a traumatized nation contemplates reopening - its populace more than ever divided and angry - it's time to ponder potential deadlines. Here's a timeline, and I invite you all to show where I'm mistaken, because everything is changing - mixing sports here - on the fly.
Normally, it takes eight weeks for MLB grapefruit teams to launch a season. Because of the rush, teams would probably try to push it to a month. That would probably mean an expanded roster, with starting pitchers lasting three innings. It would also mean a lot more elbow and shoulder injuries. I'd hate to be the young flamethrower who tears something in such a lost season. But there will be many.
It's hard to imagine teams opening camps before mid-May, or even June 1. Both Florida and Arizona have yet to hit their viral peaks, and if the refrigerated body trucks are lined up outside hospitals, it will lessen a public clamor to add hundreds of baseball players to the quarantine. Still, let's say a consortium of owners and players push to reopen camps around Memorial Day.
That could set opening day for around July 1. Obviously, Trump would push for July 4th, with the games garnishing his address to the world from Mar-a-Lago, or the nation's bunker inside the Rocky Mountains. He will herald a Fox Network TV league played in cavernous stadiums before tiny crowds of selected Trump supporters and Republican donors, with piped-in cheering. If teams play through September, that's about 81 games - half a regular season, with the playoffs starting in October, as if nothing out of the ordinary has happened.
This assumes the vast logistical problems of protecting players, ancillary staffs and families can be overcome. Frankly, I doubt that can happen without an emerging drug remedy. But Trump will be pushing everybody's buttons, and the MLB owners - his billionaire brethren - will seek to oblige.
Somewhere, somebody has a spreadsheet that shows whether the owners will make or lose money by playing a short season - compared to tossing 2020 under the bus and letting the insurance industry foot the bill. I don't have those calculations. But I assure you, somebody does. I wonder if the huge slush fund that Congress recently passed can carve out money for the owners and players - hardship cases, all.
As a Yankee fan, I certainly hope some semblance of a season can be achieved. But even if the 2020 Yankees win a ring, it will come with an asterisk and without a parade down the Canyon of Heroes. Nothing that happens this year can ever be the same.
Since December, I have set my heart to the moment when Gerrit Cole walked to the mound at Yankee Stadium, before 55,000 people, to fulfill his lifelong dream. Until that happens, baseball won't have returned. I don't see that happening in 2020. Maybe something is better than nothing. I just donno anymore.
Sunday, April 19, 2020
Virtual Baseball: Thairo a Lightning Bolt of Hope in Yanks' Darkening Skies.
In Virtual Baseball today, the New York Yankees got a much needed jolt of joy, when Thairo Estrada pinch-hit a three-run homer that thwacked off the left field foul pole, and gave the Yanks a stunning, 3-2 victory over the Cincinnati Reds at the Stadium.
Rookie Kyle Holder got the start at shortstop today and played well, making several dazzling plays in the field and laying down two successful sacrifice bunts. In the bottom of the ninth, though, after Gio Urshela and Brett Gardner singled with two outs, Manager Ma Boone sent up Estrada to pinch-hit for Holder.
"I just had a hunch—uh, I mean, that's what the sabremetrics were telling us, all the way!" Boone said afterwards. "No way I would EVER depart from those."
Estrada missed the first two pitches for strikes, barely fouled off two more, and then took a ball, before getting the barrel of his bat on a fastball from Reds closer Raisel Iglesias. He hit a high pop fly that certainly had the distance, but looked as though it might curve foul. Instead, it thwapped off the foul pole, sending the Bronx crowd into deliriums.
"Well, of course they both did great, and I think they both have terrific futures ahead of them," Boone said about his two new shortstops after the game. He then hooked a thumb toward Estevan Florial where he sat at his locker, although Florial had not played for the second game in a row: "I mean, it's not like they have a ceiling as high as that guy, or anything. But it was good to see."
Mike King pitched six strong innings in what was another encouraging start for the Yankees, although he was on the wrong end of a 2-0 score when he left the game. Adam "Mr. Zero" Ottavino got the win for New York.
It was the welcome end to a grim day for the Bombers.
First, reports circulated that longtime radio god John Sterling was still in the hospital, and that his condition was serious. The new Yankees' spokesman, Tommy Finagling, denied that was the case.
"Nah, there's nothing wrong with the man!" insisted Finagling. "Why, he just had some indigestion, very natural indigestion, too! From eating Yankee fran—uh, from eating some bad shellfish! Yeah, that's the ticket! Some bad crabmeat. You know how those eccentric artistic types are!"
Finagling also denied that the Yankees were pursuing what could only be called an unorthodox regimen of treatment for Gerrit Cole's ailing right arm.
Asked about rumors that Cole had been spotted in the Village last night, Finagling told the press:
"What? What village? No, never—oh, you mean that one! Sure, sure he was in the Village. At the hospital, you know, getting the old soup bone looked after! Yes, at St. Vincent's Hospital, that's the ticket!"
Told that St. Vincent's was made into condos years ago, Finagling finally admitted that Cole had in fact been taken for a "preliminary assessment" at Madam Cleo's Psychic Emporium, on Bleecker Street.
"Sure, sure, what's wrong with that? Why, it's perfectly fine homeopathic medicine!"
"No it's not."
"It's crystals! She ran crystals over his arm—that sometimes works all by itself!"
"No, it doesn't."
"Don't be so ethnocentric! Why, this is medicine made by the music of the spheres—"
After several more hours of dodging and feinting, Mr. Finagling admitted that Cole would go for a real MRI today.
File under
Virtual Baseball
Reggie thinks the coronavirus is God's way of shaking the tree
“Hopefully this slows us down a little bit and relationships with family and friends and God are our priority while we’re here on Earth. Let us heed of this notice so that he doesn’t have to shake the trees a little bit harder the next time he wants us to realize that we might be a little bit off track."
So, if I'm getting this right, God is - (looks around) - shaking the tree? What does that mean? Is God pruning the overripe fruits of humanity? Is that what we see in the daily death toll? Humanity went off track, and thus He is systematically culling the herd? That seems a bit - well - harsh, am I right?
I don't want to pick over some old guy's words for the sake of an argument. And I think Reggie's heart is in the right place, as he continues:
“I just kind of want to say, are we grateful for our jobs? Are we grateful for our friends and family? Do we spend enough time with our kids? Do we thank our wife for a great day? These are the things that I think about. These are the things I want to see us take notice. Are we running past the people who need help while everyone’s got a job? Look how many people now are struggling already with just 30 days of no work, three weeks of no work. Let’s be conscious of others, be conscious of who are as a nation, as a group, and certainly as a Yankee fans are certainly part of that. That’s what my concern is, the people where our home is in the Bronx.”
Reggie is right to express such sentiments, and I only wish him the best. To the day I die, I'll cherish the memory of that monstrous drive landing in the centerfield bleachers, while Charlie Hough hangs his head and contemplates eternity. That night, the juju gods were kind to him. Or maybe he was simply a great hitter.
These days, it's nice to see him pondering the plight of regular people.
But probably no player in baseball history had a larger ego than Reggie Jackson. He inhabited a world that revolved around him. Maybe it still does. I'm not attacking him... just sayin'. Reggie is now 73 - a tribal elder, with the right to his opinions. He's also a high-risk candidate to fall from a shaken tree. My biggest hope is that he stays safe, practices social distancing, and lives to be 103.
But I do not believe God is now confiscating souls because we weren't praising Him enough. A little buzzer goes off when I hear people describing God's will. I believe our fate is in our hands, not His.
Hang in there, old friend. See you at Old-Timers Day. And wash your hands.
Virtual Baseball: Yanks Scare Reds, 14-3. More Scares for Torres—and The Master.
Today in Virtual Baseball, the New York Yankees mercilessly pounded the Cincinnati Reds, 14-3, with the help of six solo home runs. But the Bronx Bombers suffered scares of their own to some of their nearest and dearest personnel, on and off the field.
First, shortstop Gleyber Torres, who has once again excelled this season at hitting home runs against the Baltimore Orioles, had to come out of the game after suffering what was later described by the team as a radial pull of the mephistophelian occlusion.
The Yanks expect Torres to only be out for a game or two. But just two innings after he was forced to leave, replacement Tyler Wade suffered a hairline fracture of his right forearm when he was hit by a pitch.
In the clubhouse afterwards, Wade paused who trying to unlace his spikes, sobbing aloud, "Why me? Why me?" Superb Thairo Estrada finished the game at shortstop, a.k.a., the Bermuda Triangle, but the Yanks announced after the game that they would be calling up Kyle Holder, who is currently hitting .213 at Scranton-Wilkes Barre, but who has impressed onlookers with his glove work.
The injuries overshadowed another impressive hitting performance by the Yanks, who hit eight different Cincinnati pitchers with abandon. Gio Urshela, Mike Ford, Gary Sanchez, and Brett Gardner, each homered, while Mike "Walkie" Tauchman hit two dingers. "El Matador," Miguel Andujar, added four doubles for the Pinstripers, while J.A. Happ breezed to another victory.
But this very display of Yankees power led to further consternation late in the game, when Sanchez and Urshela hit consecutive home runs.
Longtime Yankees radio announcer and beloved personality John Sterling was so excited by the blasts that, after giving forth with his trademark, "Back to back! Belly to belly!" he suddenly collapsed and fell over in his chair.
Sterling was revived shortly after a W.B. Mason ad and insisted that he was all right. He was escorted to a local hospital anyway, for overnight observation.
Meanwhile, the state of New Mexico called off its search for missing slugger Giancarlo Stanton. Lieutenant Governor Gerry Beckley told reporters, "We just don't have the money in our budget for this sort of tomfoolery."
File under
Virtual Baseball
Saturday, April 18, 2020
Last night, Rudy Giuliani and Sean Hannity made plans for their next Yankee outing
He was talking about the Yankees!
Listen: I am not making this up. What follows is my best reconstruction of the sparkling conversation between America's Mayor and Sean Hannity, the de facto White House Press Secretary. Turns out, Rudy was envisioning the crowd at Yankee Stadium sometime soon.
Rudy: Twenty thousand people! We'll each be separated by a couple of empty seats.
Hannity: You'll like it. That way, you won't have to hear me talk all the time!
Rudy: It'll be just like normal, except fewer people in the stands.
Hannity: You should see this guy. Mr. Mayor here always gets the best seats in the house, right next to the Yankee dugout!
Rudy: They'll space everyone out, so people can do their 'social distancing.'
Hannity: You'll love it. You won't have to hear me talk all the time!
Rudy: Maybe thirty thousand.
Hannity: When I go to games, I talk all the time. That's the way I am at games. I just talk all the time.
Rudy: Maybe sitting one seat apart.
Hannity: You'll love it. You won't have to hear me talk all the time!
Oh, the joys of confinement. Every day, we learn something new.
Virtual Baseball: Gray Just Misses No-Hitter, Tanaka Misses Start. Stanton Missing.
Virtual Sonny Gray, pitching for the Cincinnati Reds tonight, came within two outs of pitching a no-hitter versus his former team, the Virtual New York Yankees. Instead, Gray had to settle for a one-hitter, though he went on blank the Yanks by a score of 4-0.
D.J. LeMahieu managed to thwap a ball through the Reds infield for a clean single with one out in the ninth, bringing a cheer from the 318 people who remained in attendance at Virtual Yankee Stadium. Another 21 were treated for frostbite on this chilly April evening.
366 more were treated for food poisoning, although Yankees creature Lonn Trost described that as the usual, early-season average.
Gray was masterful tonight, striking out 11 and walking only three. Currently 4-0, he leads the NL with a 1.27 ERA. Asked what made the difference between his performances in the Queen City and the Bronx, Sonny replied:
"No disrespect intended, but with the Yankees, going to the pitching coach meant having to talk to this big, fat, stubborn fuck who just wanted you to throw the pitches he liked. I find that there is a different attitude here in Ohio."
The Yankees, at 12-7, remained in second place in the American League East, four games before the sizzling Tampa Bay Rays. But concern continued to grow over New York's starting staff, as rumors flew that Gerrit Cole had been seen weeping at a Manhattan hospital, while Masahiro Tanaka was forced to miss his start tonight while the team's crack physicians attempted to insert "lots a stuff" back into his elbow.
In his place, prized Yankees rookie Deivi Garcia got his first start of the year and went a strong five innings, allowing just two runs and four hits.
But the real story of the game was Gray, who shut down the Yankees from wire to wire. Particularly frustrated was rookie centerfielder Estevan Florial, who struck out all four times he faced the Reds pitcher.
"No, I don't have any worries, because someday, someday, bang-zoom, he's going to hit that high ceiling!" Manager Ma Boone told reporters afterwards.
Meanwhile, Giancarlo Stanton remained missing in the New Mexico desert today. When the Yankees tried to give reporters a briefing on his status, they were interrupted by the dean of the press corps, Brian Harper, who told club officials:
"Frankly, we just don't give a shit. Nobody cares that much about him."
Deputies continued to search for the slugger, but confessed that their hopes were beginning to wane. And that they, too, were bored.
File under
Virtual Baseball
Friday, April 17, 2020
Hoss--also this day in 1951
Mick's first game, sporting number 6.
Shepard and Mick both started the same day? Amazing.
Eddie Murray voted all-time Yankee opponent at first base
The final tally (of 234 votes):
Eddie Murray (51): 22%
Miguel Cabrera (45): 19%
Harmon Killebrew (44): 19%
Rafael Palmeiro (27): 12%
Kevin Youkilis (24): 10%
Rafael Palmeiro (27): 12%
Kevin Youkilis (24): 10%
Boog Powell (21): 9%
George Scott (11): 5%
Mike Hargrove (3): 1%
Scott Spiezio (2): 1%
For whatever it's worth, Murray's career record against the Yankees isn't that incredible.
In 192 games, he hit .270 with 28 HRs and 100 RBIs. In Yankee Stadium, over 100 games, his numbers are .269, with 14 HRs and 49 RBIs.
Still, a truly great first-baseman who terrorized us whenever coming to bat. Bill James calculated him to be the fifth best 1B of all time. Sporting News called him 77th on the top 100 of all-time.
What if? The Orioles drafted Murray in the third round of the 1973 draft. The Yankees first round pick that year was pitcher Doug Heinold. They selected SS Mike Heath in the second round and pitcher Howard Shoff in the third.
Finally: His 19 grand slams rank fourth all time. (The leader is A-Rod with 25.)
How Not to Learn From History.
By the by, the regular phalanx in the Yankees broadcast booth for that game was joined by Alex Rodriguez, looking splendiferous as usual in one of his sparkling new suits.
A-Rod, always excited to be accepted as a real boy, was going on and on about how wonderful Aaron Judge was, with all his skills, his splendid body, "and less than 10 percent body fat!"
He felt that MLB was foolish not to "spend tens of millions" to make Judge the face of baseball, "the face of all American sports!" He also predicted Aaron would hit "500 or 600" home runs.
Enough.
There's been far too much pressure placed on Judge already, what with the "Judge's Chambers" section and all that. He's handled it very, very well, and you know me, I love Aaron Judge more than the sweet, dark mystery of life its own self.
But he's only human. We've seen the limits of Judge's splendid body, and we had already by the time A-Rod was gushing on. We'll be very, very lucky if he gives us 5-6 good years before breaking down completely—and that should suffice.
He's not going to hit 500-600 home runs. He's not going to be anything more—if we're lucky—than a perfectly fine outfielder who works hard at his game, has a lot of field smarts, seems to be an upstanding citizen, and maybe, in just the right year, helps his team to a world championship.
That's all ye can ask for in this game today, and all ye need to have.
Isn't it enough for Alex Rodriguez that he drove himself to distraction—and his body and reputation over the brink of destruction—in trying to live up to impossible expectations? Why try to torment others?
Given his natural abilities and hard work, A-Rod might have spent his whole career as a Gold-Glove shortstop with a mere 300-400 home runs and a plaque already in Cooperstown. That only thing that stopped that from coming true was his own demons.
"Less than 10 percent body fat!" Sheesh!
Yeah, Alex, keep on fetishizing the body athletic. Learn nothing, know nothing about what the gods, JuJu and otherwise, allow us to attain and what they do not.
History.
Courtesy of the YES broadcast of last season's 5-3 win over the Boston Red Sox on this date a year ago, April 17, 1951, marked Bob Sheppard's debut as an announcer at Yankee Stadium.
Here is the lineup he introduced, in the home opener against the 1951 Red Sox:
Jackie Jensen, LF
Phil Rizzuto, SS
Mickey Mantle, RF
Joe DiMaggio, CF
Yogi Berra, C
Johnny Mize, 1B
Billy Johnson, 3B
Jerry Coleman, 2B
Vic Raschi, P
Ho-hum, just another home opener with five future Hall of Famers in the lineup, and 11 MVPs between them. Also, the guy who would be 1951's Rookie of the Year, Gil McDougald, was on the bench.
Yanks won, 5-0, as Raschi pitched a complete game shutout, Jensen homered and doubled, and Mantle, DiMaggio, and Berra also drove in runs.
You know, sometimes I think maybe we forget how lucky we are...
Virtual Off-Day: Injury List Grows. Stanton Still At Large.
Returning to New York after a successful first Western swing, the Virtual Yankees had to confront a problem that plagued them last year: injuries.
Luke Voit, after one of his best games at first base yesterday, was reporting a pull in his trilateral sephardic cortex, while catcher Gary Sanchez, off to only a .176 start behind the plate, was diagnosed with a jesuitical left selenium.
"None of it looks too serious. But they have to be watched," Manager Ma Boone said after getting the trainer's report.
Meanwhile, there was confusion over whether or not Gerrit Cole had had his right arm examined, after a plane ride back from Dallas which he reportedly spent doubled over in pain, clutching his shoulder and demanding more shots of vodka to ease the agony.
"Yeah, yeah, sure, he had an FYI," Yankees creature Randy Levine, cornered while out catching flies at lunchtime, told a reporter.
Asked if he meant to say that Cole had had an "MRI," Levine replied, "Actually, he had a MYOFB," and placed his hand over his crotch for added emphasis.
No word still on the whereabouts of slugger Giancarlo Stanton, although New Mexico authorities reported that, judging by its hoofprints, the horse he was thought to be riding had traveled past "plants and birds and rocks and things" and was approaching "sand and hills and rings."
"Well, at least in the desert there ain't no one for to give him no pain, that's for sure," New Mexico state trooper Dewey Bunnell told the press.
File under
Virtual Baseball
Thursday, April 16, 2020
Before the Courthouse, Stan's, and Parking Lots
Shown below is Baseball's One True Cathedral on April 19th, 1923, the day AFTER Opening Day:
The subway was there but this is before the Bronx Courthouse was built, before any of the businesses we know today such as Stan's and the Bowling Alley, and before any attempt was made to build any ... parking lots.
I'm really not sure why the place was filled to capacity on Day 2 of the season (refrigerator magnet day?), but look at all the cars in the adjacent lots ... all of the parking towers had yet to be built to accommodate the crowds.
Please also look also at all those open, grassy spaces and just how big that outfield was.
Soon we'll be back there.
Please stay safe, everyone.
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