Indians 2B Asdrubal Cabrera pulls off one of the rarest feats in baseball: the unassisted triple play!

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/200...ritethru.0317/

The Jays offense is so bad I expect them to hit into an unassisted quadruple play before long.

And yet, they still have 12 runs more this year than the Royals :(

SI

Lance Berkman is the man.

True, that...

He's on such an insane hot streak right now. The ball must look like a beach ball to him.

SI

Holy crap! This is awesome! :D :eek:



BREAKING NEWS: Delgado's agent is insane

by Dan Graziano Sunday May 11, 2008, 1:24 PM


From time to time, I get e-mail responses to things I write. Mostly, they're negative -- people who disagree with me, hate me or get a kick out of calling me lewd names. Lots of times they begin with "I usually agree with you, but..." Which makes me wonder why so few people write when they agree. But I digress.

This afternoon, I got an e-mail from David Sloane, who is the agent for Mets first baseman Carlos Delgado and had a problem with something I wrote in my Sunday notebook about his client.

Now, I had heard stories about Sloane being unbalanced and unprofessional, but I was dazzled when I finally saw it on display.

His first e-mail to me came in at 11:58 a.m. It read, simply, "You're wrong on both the money and the terms" and attached the passage from my column that referred to Delgado's 2008 compensation:

"The money is almost a wash -- the Mets are paying Delgado $12 million in salary this year plus a $4 million buyout on his 2009 option for a total of $16 million, and the Mariners are paying Sexson $14 million. Delgado has a no-trade clause, and could veto any deal, but maybe he's sick of the New York circus."

Now, as I understand it, Delgado is making $16 million this year and the Marlins are paying $4 million of it as a condition of the 2005 trade that sent Delgado to New York. So when I wrote "the Mets are paying $12 million," I believed that to be accurate and still do.

So I wrote back to Sloane: "How so?"

His response came at 12:20 p.m.:

"Ask your unreliable sources to look it up again."

As I mentioned, I'd heard about Sloane being belligerent and unprofessional, so I smiled and wrote back:

"Real classy and helpful. Thanks. If you can't tell me what I got wrong, I will assume I got it right and you're just living down to your reputation. As I understand it, he makes $16 mil this year and the Marlins pay $4 mil of it."

Yeah, I was egging him on, and maybe I shouldn't have, but I think what I wrote was pretty innocent, compared as you will see to where he ended up taking the conversation.

His response this time was fairly civil. It arrived at 12:33 p.m.:

"But that isn't what you wrote, you said he's making 12 & has a no trade which is wrong. But then why let a little thing like a fact get in the way of your jornalism. As for my "reputation" you know what they say about people that can't take a joke."

I'm still not clear on the no-trade. It could be my mistake, in which case, if the agent wanted me to, I would happily correct it in next Sunday's notes. In most cases, I'd ask the agent to clarify. But in this case, the agent is obviously mentally ill.

I wrote back:

"Sorry I missed your 'joke.' This is what I wrote:
'the Mets are paying Delgado $12 million in salary this year plus a $4 million buyout on his 2009 option'

I won't hold my breath waiting for your apology."

Glad I didn't. Because it didn't come. What did come was a total descent into immature madness by somebody who purports to be a major league player agent. Sloane wrote back at 12:40 p.m.:

"Apologize this retard, he's making 16 this year WITH an option for next year @ 16 or a buyout @ 4. Nice research by you but then I guess that whole concept of fact finding escapes you huh? They didn't teach that on the short bus did they?"

Seriously. Not making this up. I cut-and-pasted it.

Couple of thoughts here:

1. I don't respond when readers call me names, but I'm not surprised when it happens. But this guy is an AGENT. I mean, somebody you'd expect, even if vindictive and hateful, to act like a professional in his dealings with the media. I guess we don't have to wonder why he has no other clients.

2. If he thinks there's a chance in hell the Mets are picking up a $16 million option on Delgado for 2009, he's delusional on top of everything else.

Anyway, maybe I should have resisted, but I couldn't. I wrote him back again:

"That a joke too? You're a funny guy."

And then, at 12:46 pm, in apparent celebration of Mother's Day, David Sloane, the agent for Carlos Delgado, wrote back the following e-mail, which I present to you in its entirety:

"So's your Mom."

And there you have it, folks. "So's your Mom."

My final thought, and I'll leave the rest to you guys to ponder: It's pretty darned impressive that Delgado got the contract he did with a nine-year-old for his agent.

awesome.

Could you imagine if this guy represented Barry Zito?

Sick, isn't it? I'm amazed that the Royals are only 3 games out of first place given our offensive woes. Thankfully, Guillen is starting to heat up and Butler appears to be coming out of his slump.

Greinke threw another gem last night. He's really doing a great job right now. It would appear that the hype may actually be true.

Nice slide my Frank Thomas yesterday. I hope he retires soon. :( He actually stopped running to attempt a slide at home, and was tagged out. The slide looked so awkward in that his leg slide over the plate... if he just kept running, he'd probably be safe I think.

Good pitching duel in the Mets-Nats game so far, Alou just got ejected and Schneider promptly breaks a scoreless tie with a homer

and Zimmerman ties the game with one that hasn't landed yet

fucking Heilman

and he goes on to give up 4 runs with 2 outs. fucking hack

Okay I have to admit, the Manny Ramirez high five made me laugh.
Not a huge belly laugh, more like a shaking-my-head-chuckling laugh but still ...

Berkman again, 2 run homer in the first

Hey, when you are one of the greatest players of your generation and headed to the Hall of Fame when you hang 'em up, you can get away with all sorts of stuff :D.

Man, I just can't help but get excited about the Royals pitching staff at this point. Grienke, Hochaver, and Bannister look like a great 1-2-3 starting combo for the near future. In the bullpen, Nunez and Soria are probably the best bullpen setup/closer combo in the American League right now.

If only we could score a few more runs to actually support the pitching........

Manny is great.

Oh yeah! Zimmerman is finally getting his swing back. He's still only been good for 1 hit a night, but they've been HRs more and more recently. And he is, of course, still amazing at third.

He did make a great play to save a couple of runs.

That being said tgis Met team is killing me. They play to the level of their competition and it is making me insane.

No way they should need a win today to split at home against the Nats, they have way to much talent to be in this position.

Heileman needs to go straight to mop up duty, I have no idea why Smith isn't getting the important innings.

Ryan Braun signs with the Brewers until 2015:

http://blogs.jsonline.com/brewers/ar...n/default.aspx

Its gotten to the point with Heilmann that when I see him warming up I change the channel and assume its a loss.

Yes, you'll notice I am latching on to one of our only bright spots, while you're having to watch a few poor pitchers throw this homestand away. I make no attempt to claim the Nats are better than they are, that's why I cheer as much as I can when they do well. So far it seems like an early Florida run before the next sell-off, but I will be surprised if they can run through the whole season.

I've heard talk of possibly shifting Soria to the rotation because he's so dominant. What's the chatter out there in KC on this?

So, the Indians have held opponents to something like 40 straight scoreless innings?

This is the only thing I've seen about it in recent days. This was written by a columnist at the KC Star.........

http://www.kansascity.com/sports/col...ry/614703.html

Indians' starting pitchers, and I think it's 43 innings.

Pitchers duel at Shea through 5 1/2.

Gotta love the Jays, Dustin McGowan with a no hitter through 4, but thanks to a walk, stolen base, fly ball to move the runner to third and a wild pitch, he has given up an earned run.

How does that sequence result in an ER?

I'm just going off the yahoo box score, but assuming they are correct, the wild pitch being the pitcher's fault would make it earned I guess. Not sure if it had been scored a passed ball if that would have counted as an error to make it unearned or not.

Hmm ok. I was just confused because of the walk. Looks like they scored again though. :p

Who had May 15 in the "Nick Johnson to the DL" pool?

Oh, that's right. Everybody did.

Yeah, my Tribe have plenty of problems (no closer, no offense lately) but right now starting pitching isn't one of them, even if Laffey did give up an unearned run today.

How does Jose Lopez have a .315 BA and a .313 OBP? Is it the Sac Flys? http://www.baseball-reference.com/l/lopezjo01.shtml

I don't know, that doesn't make sense to me.

Exactly.

(H + BB + HBP) / (AB + BB + HBP + SF)

Shutout.

You have got to be kidding me.

Pelfry gives them exactly what they need and they can't score one god damn run?


Absolutly inexcusable. Period.

with the speed the Mets have they should be able to manufacture runs, espescialy in a game where it is obvious one run may make a huge difference.

Sigh.


That's the unmistakable power of Bergmann. :p

Only 6 games from .500!

Bergmann is a Rutgers guy so I'm fine with him beating the Mets (seriously, he was our 4th starter in the rotation...kinda crazy that he's a successful ML pitcher knowing that).

And about the speed...we probably win the game if Castillo runs out a pop-out and if Reyes doesn't try to steal an extra base because it's unguarded.

God I hate these fuckers.

Couldn't watch the game, but from what I heard on the FAN during the post game it sounded like Pelfrey pitched a good game and they still lost. I'm officially on the fire Willie Randolph wagon. I agree with what the callers were saying, Randolph comes from the "professional" Yankees background and shows no sense of urgency/fire and doesn't have a clue on how to motivate these guys. IMO, this is a team, with guys like Reyes, Wright, Perez, Pedro, among many others, who can use/benefit from a manager that shows a little fire and emotion.

Royals with a 3 game sweep of the Tigers to get back to 2 games of .500 and only 2.5 games of first. They looked like they were about to fall off the face of the earth, losing two of three to the Angels and the first three to Baltimore. Then they reel off 4 wins in a row.


Well, Soria has 4 pitches and really only uses 2 closing. There's a chance that he could be a really good starter, too, and a good starter is even harder to find than a good closer.

However, it likely won't happen this season. For one, the rotation is doing good right now. Greinke is absolutely dominant. Meche is looking more like Meche from last year. Bannister and Hochevar have both been on and off but have ERAs under 4. And Tomko is, well, a 5th starter but there are a couple of AAA guys like Davies who deserve a shot.

And, secondly, the bullpen is the really strong suit of the team and I don't think they'd mess with it:

Closer: Soria 16.1 IP, 18K, 0.00 ERA, 10 SV
Set Up: Nunez 16.2 IP, 13K, 1.62 ERA
Lefty: Mahay 18.0 IP, 16K, 2.50 ERA
Righty: Ramirez 17.0 IP, 21K, 1.06 ERA

Do you really want to screw with that for the 7th/8th/9th?

SI

Berkman is insane. He's single handedly keeping my fantasy batters afloat.

12 games in May- 1.779 OPS with a .587 average. WTF?!?

SI

Did I mention how I am not really too big of a K-Rod fan right now?

Tonight versus the White Sox was another classic example. Comes in the ninth with the game tied, 3-3, and facing AJ Pierzynski. He should be able to get this guy out. But as usual, he needs to let the first runner on so he can feel some pressure. Pierzynski gets a base hit and legs out a double (kudos to him). K-Rod gets the next two outs, with AJ now on third, and all he has to do is get Thome out, and Thome hasn't been hitting all series. So he gives up the base hit and AJ scores the go ahead run.

And, as if trying to nail the point down, Bobby Jenks--former Angels farmhand Bobby Jenks ridiculously waived for a pointless 40 Man transaction by Stoneman and picked up by the Sox--comes in and does what I want my closer to do every time. 1. 2. 3. Game over.

Not that hard, Frankie. Enjoy your money in New York next year. We'll use half of it to find a less "cardiac" closer, and use the rest to improve the team elsewhere.

I'm really interested to see what KC does against Florida in Miami this weekend. Both teams are playing well and, funny enough, KC has a bigger payroll by a pretty wide margin.

Interesting.

Damn Global Warming Ruining Baseball Run Production!

Actually, global warming is a cause of home run production.

no!

I don't think you're reading the graph correctly. Home runs are a cause of global warming.

What is Al Gore's position on this?

In an effort to reduce his carbon footprint, he has become a Royals fan.

Well played.

Only right to be fair to K-Rod. 1-2-3 inning tonight. That's how you do it. He pitched like the 2003-04 Frankie tonight.

And the curse continues

Soria gave up his first two runs of the season tonight. Thankfully, the Royals were up 3 at the time and they still won 7-6.

SI

Susan Waldman is such a cunt.

I was forced to listen to the Yankees broadcast of the Mets Yankees game today and at the start of the game Waldman is going over the recoard and say " the Yankees are five games behinf the Rays, and since we don't care about the Rays they are 3 games behind Boston"

What an unneccesary thing to say, makes me hate the Yankees even more.

What a story the Rays have been so far this year. Good for them. Maybe they'll con someone into building them a ballpark.

yep.

And that bitch whose job it is to broacast facts basicly says the Rays don't matter and the only teams that do are the Yanks and Sox.

dola- plus the combination between her and John Sterling make the game unlistenable.

I was cleaning my basement and my XM was the only option

Well she's a Yankees broadcaster, so at least that's sorta to be expected. She can live in whatever dreamland she wants to, the generic brand logo Rays are in 1st and the Yankees are in last. No complaints about that from me.

Soriano has gone completely ballistic this week as he carries the Cubs to a 8-2 homestand.

The Rays face an uphill battle to relevance, a good month and half is awesome to see but it doesn't get them there.

And Delgado just got fucked out of a three run home run.

Baseball needs instant replay for homeruns

It would be great if Jon Miller realized that the LF wall is curved and the foul pole isn't in the wrong spot.

And there it is. Only took him about a half hour.

Damn cheating Yankees.

I'm sure they paid off someone :p.

No, it had nothing to do with the Yankees. According to Bob Danielson's mic, it was a foul ball because "the guy to the left of the foul pole picked up the ball."

I wish I was kidding.

Reyes showing off some power in Yankees Stadium... 11-2 Mets now.

A baseball-related random blurb from today's Tom Taylor newsletter (from radio-info.com)

Another sports team is interested in buying its own sports station – the Minnesota Twins.

The Pohlad family emerged last Summer as an angel to acquire Radio One’s rhythmic “B96” KTTB (96.3) for $28 million and there was speculation then that they wouldn’t be satisfied with just one station. Now the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports rumors that the Pohlads’ Northern Lights Broadcasting is interested in buying FM talker KTLK-FM (100.3) from Clear Channel – and doing sports on it. That could set the stage for moving the Twins’ baseball games there after the expiration of the current deal with the Hubbards’ KSTP (1500), in 2010. Though Northern Lights president Steve Woodbury says he hasn’t talked about it with the family and says “they don’t want to talk about that.” But it’s clear he’d love to do sports on FM, to compete with Clear Channel’s KFAN (1130). CC might not be too thrilled about selling a facility that would be converted into a direct competitor – so the Pohlads may have to scout elsewhere. But they’re definitely interested in adding more radio stations there, and they've got the budget to do it. Woodbury says “We didn’t get into this to buy one station. There are a number of possibilities, but nobody is there yet.”

Fixed.

Oh yeah, and instant replay for regular HRs would be great now, too. :)

I'm watching the Phils play the Nats, and I must say, what's up with the camera angles when the ball is in play? It looks like the camera man is up in the 900 level behind the plate.

For all you regular Nats watchers, is this normal?

Cubs starting catcher Geovany Soto just hit an inside the park homerun in Houston.

And Jim Edmonds can still go get 'em in CF. Shades of Willie Mays over the head.

Jon Lester has just no-hit KC at Fenway.

And DaddyTorgo had offered me a ticket to the game today at 5. I decided I couldn't make it into the city before first pitch, and thought it would be impolite to give work less then an hour's notice, so I declined.

(sadly tears up his "Red Sox Fan" card..)

Guess I'm a bandwagoner :( :)

WoW

did DT go to the game?

I think he did.

:eek: Dangit, I'd have found a way to catch a flight up there for that! :D

Actually, spending an arm and a leg on a last-minute flight north probably would have been infinitely better than how my craptastic day turned out.

/tk

actually...and you're all going to KILL me

I decided not to go. Was having a bad day and wasn't feeling it.

:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:

/tk

*hangs head in shame*

Actually, I'd say we couldn't do anything worse to you than already happened.
You'll know you missed a piece of history for the rest of your life.
;)

yes yes I know. I will never live this down. And my exact words to a friend "if it was dice-k or beckett I would totally go...but it's lester."

ah well. Whatever. Life goes on. Funny thing I was just telling lathum - I was going to send my parents for their aniversary but they backed out at the last minute and I was not really feeling the whole "going alone" thing and just kinda wanted to come home and be alone.

ah well

so if Fozzie had wanted to go you you both would have gone?

Oh, it gets better. I got in to work, and there's an email from my (temporary) boss in Australia.

"Dave, a couple of my guys down here want to take some time sunday and monday our time (Sat and Sun nights my time).. can you work that for me? I'll give you a couple of weekdays off in return.."


GAHHHHHHHH!!

yes. But my negative energy would have affected Lester an he wouldn't have thrown a no-no.

Man, what a story.

was just telling everyone too - the tickets were a gift from a client - I have to say that I used them. So I have to go in tomorrow all like "woohooo that was awesome...omg...omg" kinda.

Not that I'm like over here THAT bummed out or anything, but it's just going to be...silly.

That's pretty funny. I'd feel bad too.

Please, please, put this in your signature. While you're all angst-ridden over it, I think it's jilarious. :)

Least you have a story out of it.

To all sports fans who are not Red Sox fans, we apologize that ESPN has yet another reason to cover only teams named Yankees or Red Sox 24/7.

Sincerely,
The Royals

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3404443
LOS ANGELES -- Andruw Jones underwent an MRI on Monday that revealed a slight cartilage tear in his right knee, and the Dodgers will wait a few days to see if the center fielder will have to undergo surgery.

"Hopefully, I can do it [surgery] in the offseason," Jones said, according to The Los Angeles Times.

Jones was scratched from Monday night's game against Cincinnati because of swelling due to fluid buildup. He said he felt discomfort during the Dodgers' weekend games against the Angels.

Jones signed a two-year, $36.2 million contract with the Dodgers in the offseason but hasn't rewarded them. He is batting .167 with two home runs, seven RBIs and a .275 on-base percentage.

Jones was hitless in 11 at-bats in the Dodgers' interleague series against the Angels.

I'm so glad that the Royals opted for Guillen over Jones. Even got Guillen for $5M/season less than Jones' salary.

I haven't watched any games on TV this year. :( (I don't have cable)

I have heard the booth guys complain about how high their seats are, and I think the cameras have the same problem. I've only been in the park and I'm not sure where the cameras are behind home plat, only in the outfield. I will try to look next time I go (I was there last night, actually -- and if you were watching the game you probably saw me. I sit right behind the 1st base ball girl).

in all fairness - maybe this starts to explain his suckitude this year?

Oh but you see, I'm not angst-ridden. I'm not happy that I didn't go, but I'm not angst-ridden.