Post-Labor Day Rambling Blues
Random frivolities while wondering if Jerry Rice will go into the Hall of Fame as a Seahawk …
* An amusing item from today’s Mariners Notebook in the P-I:
ESPN cut to a shot of A’s manager Ken Macha kicking the door off the restroom at the end of the A’s dugout in the bottom of the sixth.
Although it might have looked as if he were kicking the door in frustration, he wasn’t. Blanton, who had kicked the door in frustration, was inside. And his kicks had jammed the door.
Oakland bench coach Rene Lachemann, the former Mariners coach, tried to kick the door back into shape. He was unsuccessful. But martial arts student Macha got it done with a few well-placed kicks.
Note to Mariners: if we brawl with the A’s, don’t assume that Macha’s a pushover because he looks like a medieval studies professor.
Note to Jeff Liefer: might want to see if you can catch on with the A’s. It could save you 20 minutes in a key situation.
* Speaking of the P-I and football, if you like that sport where the ball bounces funny, check out my man Danny O’Neil’s Hawks training camp blog. Rumor has it that other denizens of the M’s blogosphere discuss the pratfalls of the Hometown Eleven fairly regularly, too.
* Jeff “Don’t Call Me Matt” Clement is off to a hot start. And you likely know this already, but it’s pronounced CLEHM-ent, not cle-MENT like the Red Sox pitcher. Potato, potahto, tomato, tomahto.
Although now that I think about it, the hobbits in Lord of the Rings say “potato,” but also “tomahto.” This inconsistency is almost as bad as excising the Dernhelm plotline.
Let’s call the whole thing off. As long as we’re discussing pronunciation, though …
* Linguistic conspiracy theory: It cannot be a coincidence that Rick Rizzs pronounces Yorvit Torrealba’s first name exactly the same as he pronounces the appellation of sponsor Jorve Roofing. Clearly, subconscious marketing at work. We should start checking the broadcasts for backward masking.
If I were JoeJessica*, I would see if I could finagle an endorsement deal out of this. “Because everything you call home is … behind the plate”? “Because home is where the catcher is”? Okay, there’s a reason I’m not in advertising.
* Randy Winn, pre-trade: 102 games, six home runs. Randy Winn, post-trade: 32 games, five home runs. Don’t call it a comeback. He’s been here for years. Here’s wishing Winn, a class guy and a quality player, much continued success except during certain obvious interleague play situations.
Comments
45 Responses to “Post-Labor Day Rambling Blues”
* “JoeJessica” because his last name is spelled like “Joe Torre” plus “Jessica Alba.” This spelling mnemonic (c) 2005, Jason M. Barker.
We should really add it to the FAQ.
“In six appearances with Tacoma since joining the Mariners organization in the Randy Winn trade July 31, RHP Jesse Foppert has appeared in six games.”
That’s good to know. (Somebody made an editing mistake.)
The following sentence is actually helpful. He’s doing okay, even though his velocity’s not back yet. Foppert may end up to be a steal in that trade. I wouldn’t mind.
I’m feeling optimistic about next year. Maybe the M’s can have a good off-season and jump into respectability.
I can’t take credit for JoeJessica. I always put it that way in the game threads, but a reader/poster mentioned it first.
jason
Some reason to be optimistic. Brian LaHair(1b) jacked 2 solo shots and Rob Johnson(C) had a 2 run shot to beat Australia 6-4 in the Worlds in Amsterdam. Both had great years at Inland Empire and Wisconsin respectivly and both are still young. Can’t wait to see them move up in the system. Some position players with pop!
It’s in the FAQ.
Ask, and I shall receive.
You know, we really should paint my house and wash my car.
LaHair provides a pile of optimism, and the Ms will need someone to replace Bucky’s after our favorite red-beard’s descent into a hell that isn’t even in New Orleans.
No there is no reasonable connection. I just wanted an answer from someone who witnessed it: did Bucky flame-out, time-warp or get swallowed by the Tacoma Narrows bridge?
Since apparently this is the Ministry of Silly Walks thread, I’ll just point everyone at the (short) Costas Now clip discussing “Is Clemens the greatest pitcher ever?”
Al Leiter actually makes a pretty good case (if not for Clemens specifically then for today’s pitchers in general), and Jon Stewart is in his usual fine form. Well worth sitting through the Microsoft commercial at the start.
Talk about the opposite end of the spectrum from today’s first post.
This is today’s first post. The Attrition War summary posts were yesterday.
The potato/tomato thing was exactly as Tolkien wanted it. Academic philologists don’t get that sort of thing wrong.
Where are all the philologists, these days?
And I love that this is on topic. Great post, Jeff.
“Linguistic conspiracy theory: It cannot be a coincidence that Rick Rizzs pronounces Yorvit Torrealba’s first name exactly the same as he pronounces the appellation of sponsor Jorve Roofing. Clearly, subconscious marketing at work. We should start checking the broadcasts for backward masking.”
I have been waiting impatiently for the new “here’s Jorvit with the Jorve Roofing Report”
In a discussion with a buddy today, I was looking at the VORPs for all major league pitchers with 100 innings or more (basically, the starters). There’s 129 pitchers on the list. Here are the five Mariners who qualify, along with the percentile rank just for fun.
Jamie Moyer, 54th of 129, 59th percentile
Ryan Franklin, 91st of 129, 30th percentile
Joel Piniero, 105th of 129, 19th percentile
Aaron Sele, 115th of 129, 11th percentile
Gil Meche, 117th of 129, 9th percentile
Sele and Meche are also two of the 16 pitchers with negative VORPs.
It’s obviously a quick and dirty technique to show how much our starters sucked, and has lots of obvious flaws. But, it does demonstrate that the front office may want to work to upgrade the bullpen. Not a new thought, but there it is.
On the behalf of medievalist academics worldwide, just what exactly is a medieval studies professor supposed to look like? Huh? Huh?
Really, though, I’m just puzzled and sort of flattered by my discipline being brought into the conversation at all. Must have been Tolkien’s influence.
By the way, one of ESPN’s fantasy guys talks about Felix today:
http://games.espn.go.com/cgi/flb/OutOfTheBox/index
Ken Macha looks just like one of my medieval studies profs from the University of Oregon. I studied it in undergrad a bit.
I took one course called “The History of Magic, Science, and Religion in Medieval and Early Modern Europe.”
That was pretty much all I needed.
Snipe or Dumbledore?
This is just more evidence that Jeff is knowledgable on every subject known to man.
Statistical analysis of baseball?
Environmental effects of the changing climate of Okinawa?
Pro wrestling?
Haiku?
Female debate camps?
Home improvement and remodeling?
Inner workings of the print media?
Medieval languages?
Jeff Shaw is your man for any of the above and much, much more.
Except, apparently, painting his house and washing his car…
If you combine any two of those areas, you’d have a lively TV show.
Now I am knowledgable in blushing, thanks to Dave.
Okay – Pro wrestling and haiku. Here we go.
Powerslam your foe
He will not rise to face you
Time to count him out
Wait – haiku needs a seasonal reference.
Frozen in anguish
The figure-four leglock pain
will not bring summer
Eeagh. Let’s try again.
Cherry blossoms fall
The people’s eyebrow trembles
The Rock makes bad films
I give up.
frog leaps into pond
gold leaf swings downward to ground
your face to the mat
The poet gimmick
From Poffo to Heidenreich
Has much history
Seeking baseball, I
Load the blog, only to find…
What the hell is this?
pronunciation
done badly: product placement,
or mass confusion?
for haiku, costs rise
and syllable counts get screwed
by the errant tongue
23: My pathetic attempt:
I like to comment
DMZ just body slammed me
for commenting too much
I won’t even try.
Olivo in May
Torrealba in August
We need a catcher
We already do
Jeff Clement in ’07
Now, starting pitching…
Doyle on the shelf
What is this world coming to?
The apocalypse
Jeff wins.
But only because of the Poffo reference. Jeff’s a Genius I tell you. THE Genius in fact.
#13: said: But, it does demonstrate that the front office may want to work to upgrade the bullpen. Not a new thought, but there it is.
Why would we want to upgrade the bullpen when the starting pitching sucks? Wouldn’t it just be better to upgrade the starting pitching?
The M’s have about the 4th or 5th best bullpen in the AL while the starters are 11th or 12th. The bullpen is actually one of the strenghts of the team.
and all this just makes me think of:
Immanuel Kant was a real piss-ant
who was very rarely stable
Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar
who could think you under the table
David Hume could out-consume
Schopenhauer and Hegel
And Wittgenstein was a beery swine
who was just as sloshed as Schlegel
Sgt. Slaughter sez:
Bikini race is over
If haiku don’t stop.
http://www.wwe.com/superstars/2005divasearch/ashley/videos/
Re #34
There’s nothing Nietzche couldn’t teach ya
‘Bout the raising of the wrist.
Socrates, himself, was permanently pissed.
John Stuart Mill, of his own free will,
On half a pint of shandy was particularly ill.
Plato, they say, could stick it away–
Half a crate of whisky every day.
Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle.
Hobbes was fond of his dram,
And René Descartes was a drunken fart.
‘I drink, therefore I am.’
Yes, Socrates, himself, is particularly missed,
A lovely little thinker,
But a bugger when he’s pissed.
idiot long link
Sorry, it looks like something mangled the link (i didn’t add the nofollow). Raw:
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/stats?playerId=5355
Randy Winn, pre-trade: 102 games, six home runs. Randy Winn, post-trade: 32 games, five home runs. Don’t call it a comeback. He’s been here for years.
I’ve been enjoying the calls to the postgame about those guys who’ve left the Ms only to have success, like Varitek & Ortiz, Olivo & Aurilia, Podsednik & John Mabry… 🙂
The Macha-Blanton restroom story reminds me of a game early last year, when Rich Aurilia and John Olerud were trapped in a clubhouse room and the start of the next inning actually had to be delayed while a clubhouse attendant or somebody had to figure a way for them to get out.
yup.
“John Olerud and Rich Aurilia found themselves trapped inside the video room just behind the M’s dugout during the fourth inning Saturday night after an unnamed teammate (whose initials are B.B.) snapped after grounding out and took his frustrations — and his bat — out on the office’s door handle.
As minutes passed and the inning extended, Olerud began knocking on a window to attract the attention of Randy Winn in the adjacent indoor hitting area. When Winn couldn’t open the door from the outside, team officials scrambled to locate a maintenance man to drill the lock open.
All of which led to one of those situations Melvin never quite imagined during his preparations for becoming a big-league manager.
“Randy comes up the tunnel and says, ‘Hey, we’ve got a little problem here. Our next two hitters are locked in the video room,’ ” Melvin recalled Sunday. “So I go down there and it’s like a fire drill around that door. It was like a scene out of Abbott and Costello.” ”
Felix is our god;
Safeco is our church. Every
Five days we worship.
At least Boone cared, damnit, he cared.
Oi! geezer, no monkey says “pot-ah-to”
#33 said: (paraphrasing in my own words) MHS ruined his point about the crappy starting pitching with a absurd error.
Yes, I meant that we need to upgrade the starting pitching, not the bullpen. My damn brain malfunctions yet again …