I wish the Phils still had Lohse.

I think Girardi screwed today's game up with too much thought. I hate bringing in a reliever with 2 outs, Marte was pitching to the HOF canidate Mike Jacobs and still gets yanked.

Shields pitched like a total nob, but manages to pop three guys out to get out of it and keep the Angels up 4-3 on the Sox.

Phils comes from behind (again) and win it 7-5 in the 9th :)

Thome and Buerhle FTW! :)

From this thread it sounds like I need to try and catch Baseball Tonight this evening.

He pitched a gem today for sure. :)

He's under contract until 2011 with 3 club option years tacked on the back of that with generous terms to the club. He came to GMDM last year and wanted a long term deal and he was ok with it being generous to the club. Very cool since with the Chiefs sucking, he might be the most popular athlete in the city. So, the Mexicutioner will be closing out games for KC for this and 5 more seasons, most likely.

And, yes, he's one hell of a treat to watch. :D

SI

I approve!

One of the local sports talk stations (the good one) helped popularize the nickname last year with t-shirts that were the hottest thing going in KC last year for a while



Again, so much better nickname than the "1st letter of first name + 1st 3 letters of last name" that's been too popular for the last few years

SI

so true, thats a great nickname

+1 on the nick and I'm glad there's at least ONE good athlete in KC (are we soured on Matt Cassell already?)

Well, I think it's a bit early to get too excited about a QB who has never taken a snap for a team. But I've never been much of a Chiefs fan and don't live in KC anymore so I don't quite know the pulse of the team.

SI

After watching it I am a little surprised by the amount of hubbub the Beckett/Abreu incident generated in here.

I'm going to enjoy the Padres early success while it lasts....hopefully they don't have any 22 inning games that wreck the rest of the season :)

Don't get ahead of yourself. How long are most closers successful? 3-4 years? Then they start to slide, or get injured, etc. etc. Just enjoy him now.

Here's to the Nationals hopefully getting a win today for the home opener -- I'll be there, first row.

Rock on. How do you get seats like that? Or is it "first row, upper deck in the outfield"? ;)

SI

Oh, agreed- nothing in baseball is certain- especially with pitchers. But if he can continue to keep it up for 6 more years, we have him that long.

SI

Dude, it's the Nationals. They suck and no one is buying seats. Hell, I just checked on a Reds game for a week from Saturday and can get like 4th row behind the catcher - if I'm willing to spend $230 a seat, that is.

Feel your pain after the Tigers start last year. At least the Nats weren't predicted to win their division and be a realistic WS contender like Detroit was. Not that that makes it any easier for you, but christ that blew.

Be a season ticket holder. ;) Having said that, these are not my season tickets, but they are from the "season ticket holders get to buy early" set of tickets. Our season tickets are SECOND row. ;)


Er, are you a Royals fan, or am I thinking of someone else? :)

The seats behind the catcher are absurdly priced and no one sits there. It's a complete disaster. If you exclude those seats it's probably much harder to get a good seat. But no one wants to pay $200-300 to watch the Nationals. Even in a 35k+ attendance game those seats are virtually empty.

No, I'm not a Royals fan. But it's true - they suck, and ticket sales are way down, to the point where they won't announce season ticket sales numbers.

Truthfully, though - and I may in the minority with this opinion - I wouldn't pay $250 a seat for Game 7 of the World Series, let alone try to take a family of 4 to a game at $250 a pop. Utterly ridiculous. I guess that would explain why I haven't seen a professional sporting event in person in several years.

Yeah, he's a fan of one of those non-descript large market teams ;)

SI

You mean non-descript, as in World Series Champions?

Not sure why that matters, though. Who is going to argue with the comment that the Nationals suck and no one wants to pay good money to watch them? That's the case for a number of teams. It wasn't meant as a personal shot, and it's not like there is some kind of rivalry (although perhaps there is something between DC and Philly, I don't know - I'm not from there and don't really have a clue in that regard).

Red Sox fans are easily aggravated, even moreso when their team is losing.

Definitely not. My season tickets are 2 rows off the field and are $30/ea. I end up with 10 games of 2 tickets for myself. That is reasonable for me.


Well, there is. If nothing else in that Phillies fans, whether you want to disagree or not, are some of the worst in sports. And we have experience certainly from football, but also hockey and basketball. It has held true for baseball as well.

In addition, to know where we're at, I don't know if this made national news, but... Stan Kasten, the team president, went on two radio stations in Philadelphia and encouraged the Phillies fans to come to DC for the home opener. If that doesn't tell you something about the state of things, I don't know what else will.

But clearly, even if you look at the Phillies in the 90's, baseball attendance is largely based on performance (except a few anomolies such as the Yankees, REd Sox and Marlins). If your team does well, attendance will rise. With a team that peaked in it's first year at .500, attendance is going to be low.

dola: "Definitely not" meaning "even a Nationals fan big willing to buy season tickets doesn't want to pay $250 for a single seat"

The whole thing wasn't about the incident but about someone calling mike scioscia a "punk ass" - standard, harmless fare that doesn't become an issue unless certain personalities are involved (Nobody's similarly insulted about the "disrespect" show to Park, Zito, Dusty Baker, Jay Bruce, etc, on this message board.)

...

I think the Red Sox offense is going to look pretty impotent against good pitchers this year, but they should win enough against the drecks to contend.

OH NOES WE'RE 2-4 AFTER 6 GAMES FOO HAS REALLY CUT TO THE BONE HERE

I posted a thread for it, but if anyone is interested in the Nationals vs. Phillies game in DC at 3pm today (April 13), I currently have 1 extra ticket and I'm leaving for the game very soon.

FWIW (and I don't mean to come off as defensive as I probably am), the Phillies did not surpass the National's attendance number for last year until 2004, when they jumped 12,000/game when CBP opened. For comparison sake, Nationals Park opened last year and attendance went from 24,000/game to 29,000/game (Phillies went from 28000 to 40000 when CBP opened). The Phillies went 86-76 the year CBP opened, the Nationals were 60-102 the year Nationals Park opened.

OK, but I'm a non-Philly-living Phillies fan and I don't root for any of the city's other teams. I only became a Phillies fan back in 1979-80 because I was a huge Steve Carlton fan growing up (being 10 years old and a left-handed pitcher). I guess I'm kinda atypical in that I've been a lifelong fan of the Phillies and Broncos, yet have visited those cities a combined 3 times in my life. I still root for my hometown teams in Detroit, though.

Well the Boston/New England Defense Force certainly gets kind of crazy sometimes but this is one instance where I would have to side with them, I don't think Beckett threw at the guy intentionally and what set things off in here seemed to be harmless everyday banter.

Apparently Harry Kalas was found passed out in the broadcast booth this afternoon and his condition described as "serious" by the Phillies' president.

LOL at how fat Bobby Jenks is this year! He hasn't had the 100mph fastball since the '06 season, but his control/stuff is still plenty good enough to get the necessary outs. So far, so good for Carlos Quentin's wrist. I was worried the injury would zap all of his power, but the Canseco-esque swing is still there! Once Ozzie realizes the CF position is an absolute debacle, I'm guessing Alexei moves back to CF(played there in Cuba) and Gordon Beckham takes over at SS for the next decade. They will probably wait till the off-season to make this move, though...

EDIT: Looks like this will be one of Konerko's "good" seasons, which is bad news for the AL Central.

The Phillies reporter on Twitter has tweeted that he passed away. No link.

/tk

Dola,
This is the twitter feed: Todd Zolecki (tzolecki) on Twitter

Ok, back to back #300 homers for Dye and Konerko is pretty cool even if they are on the White Sox ;)

SI

You shut your face.

Thanks. Confirmed on ESPN.com now.

Harry Kalas...legendary Phillies announcer died today :(

http://www.philly.com/philly/sports/..._hospital.html

That is insanely cool! Congrats to both...

EDIT: RIP to Harry

Zack Fucking Miner! Dude was mediocre as a middle reliever. I'd rather pitch Travis Minor.

holy crap, wow. :(

as much as I dislike the Phillies I always enjoyed listing to him, he was a great broadcaster.

Carlos Quentin is a baseball god, that is all. He may have blown his shot for MVP last season, but the man is on a mission to right the wrong!

It's been a tragic week or so in baseball, here's another one:

Fidrych killed in accident - Extra Bases - Red Sox blog

"Mark Fidrych, a Northborough native whose aw-shucks charm and on-the-mound antics helped make him a national phenomenon as a Detroit Tigers rookie pitcher in 1976, was killed in an accident in his hometown yesterday while working on his pickup truck. He was 54.

Fidrych, who won 19 games as a rookie before injuries derailed his career, was found dead on his 107-acre farm this afternoon, according to the office of Worcester District Attorney Joseph D. Early Jr. Fidrych was found by a family friend underneath his truck at about 2:30 p.m."

I'm not sure how famous he is anymore, I haven't heard very much about him over the last 15 years or so.

The deaths suck :(

But back-to-back and 300 for Dye and Konerko and our third straight win rocks :)

I am enjoying the hell out of the Rays/Yankees game right about now.

9-0 Rays with no one out in the bottom of the 2nd. Carlos Pena just teed off on a GS and now has 6 RBIs in the game.

Poor Nats. So close and yet so far from their first win :(

SI