MLB Thread

[King of Birds]

FORTY DOLLARS? I just searched out an article, I see they had to reach agreement with Run DMC, but ... nothing towards a charity? $40?  The cash grab never ends huh?

[tom87]

Why the DH is not as fun.  The 12th inning, tied 3 to 3.  Cardinals are out of position players.   Pirates  intentionally walk Diaz hitting over .300 for pinch hitter starting pitcher Wainwright.   Wainwright hits a double to the  left center gap scoring two runs, Cardinal end up winning 9-3.

[Lantern7]

Somebody has to compile a list of the greatest pitcher homers. Tops would probably be reliever Rick Camp . . . on July 4, 1985, the Mets were up on the Braves in extra innings, and Camp went yard on Tom Gorman to keep the game going. The Mets wound up winning in 19 innings . . . between that and the rain delays, I think the game ended at 3-4 a.m. And the Braves set off fireworks as scheduled. One lady called 911, thinking the area was being bombed.

[Rick Kitchen]

Tony Cloninger of the Braves hit two grand slams in one game, does that count?

[Lantern7]

I finally got around to writing about the Dodgers/Mets game from two weeks ago. Anybody up for getting nosebleed seats for Mike PIazza Night?

[Rick Kitchen]

Has somebody tied anvils to the A's ankles?  They're sinking pretty badly.

[MVFrostsMyPie]

3 hours ago, Lantern7 said:

Somebody has to compile a list of the greatest pitcher homers. 

Every time Bumgarner hits a sweet ass homer against Kershaw, it's one of the most satisfying feelings ever. Sweet sweet satisfaction, especially with the dumbfounded look on Kershaw's face. 

[MVFrostsMyPie]

28 minutes ago, Rick Kitchen said:

Has somebody tied anvils to the A's ankles?  They're sinking pretty badly.

I kind of miss the 2012 A's who were superstars but got beaten by the Tigers, so all the A's fans, being super bitter, insisted the Giants would also lose to the Tigers. Well, I think we all know how that ended ;) 

[mojoween]

God I love the pomp and circumstance of Old-Timer's Day.

They just said on YES that a portion of the proceeds from the No Runs DMC t-shirts does go to charity so that's good.

Edited June 12, 2016 by mojoween

[smittykins]

HOME RUN HIDEKI MATSUI! 

[mojoween]

A no doubter for Godzilla!

[Maximum Taco]

Longball is flying at the Rogers Centre.

O's and Jays have 7 Homers between them.

Gotta love a shootout.

[ebk57]

29 minutes ago, Maximum Taco said:

Longball is flying at the Rogers Centre.

O's and Jays have 7 Homers between them.

Gotta love a shootout.

This game is a lot tenser than I thought it would be after the first half inning.

 

And...sigh...

Edited June 12, 2016 by ebk57

[Maximum Taco]

1 minute ago, ebk57 said:

This game is a lot tenser than I thought it would be after the first half inning.

No doubt. That was dramatic! Grilli with the 3 pitch strikeout to end it!

Thankful my Jays didn't let that one get away.

I love watching the O's and Jays, so exciting.

[xaxat]

2 hours ago, Maximum Taco said:

I love watching the O's and Jays, so exciting.

So true. . . 

Oh, you meant baseball?

[Lantern7]

YES is running Old-Timers Day now. Do any other teams have retired players compete like the Yankees do?

ETA: While I'm at it . . . what about an Old Timers Day in general? I know the Mets used to have that, and the '86 celebration will probably be the closest thing they'll get to that. And damn, this is the seventieth OTD from the Yankees. Those guys know how to do tradition.

[smittykins]

Wikipedia claims that "the pattern has been copied intermittently by other sports but has failed to catch on."

[RedheadZombie]

I went to the Braves/Cubs game in Atlanta yesterday.  The crowd seemed to be 50% Cubs fans, but it's hard to tell because Braves fans tend to be lukewarm, and never eager to wear team shirts/jerseys/caps.  The Cubs fans definitely (and deliberately) shouted down the hometown crowd - not difficult to do because Braves fans are lethargic on a good day.  I ended the day having reached my all time limit for Cub fan hate.  I did cheer for Heyward each and every time at bat, even though he turned down a contract with my Cardinals.  I heard "let's go cubbies", which was screamed every other minute or so, in my nightmares.  And the Cub fan behind me charmingly informed my mom she wasn't invited to sit by him.  Wow.  It almost made me homesick for Chicago.

On ‎6‎/‎11‎/‎2016 at 3:57 PM, tom87 said:

Why the DH is not as fun.  The 12th inning, tied 3 to 3.  Cardinals are out of position players.   Pirates  intentionally walk Diaz hitting over .300 for pinch hitter starting pitcher Wainwright.   Wainwright hits a double to the  left center gap scoring two runs, Cardinal end up winning 9-3.

That was amazing.  And it happened as I was questioning Matheny's sanity.  And then to put pitcher Martinez in as pinch runner.

[MyAimIsTrue]

23 minutes ago, RedheadZombie said:

I heard "let's go cubbies", which was screamed every other minute or so, in my nightmares.  And the Cub fan behind me charmingly informed my mom she wasn't invited to sit by him.  Wow.  It almost made me homesick for Chicago.

Years ago when I lived in Atlanta we went to a home game against San Francisco and ended up sitting in the middle of a large Giants crowd.  A couple of the guys got rowdy and started yelling nasty stuff at us and then this sweet looking old lady, sporting a SF jacket and cap, stood up and told those guys to "shut the fuck up." 

Jaws dropped.

[MVFrostsMyPie]

If I was a Braves fan, I'd hate my fellow fans. That tomahawk chop, besides being annoying to listen to and offensive, makes all their fans look like possessed mindless drones. If an alien happened to land on the field while they were doing that, they'd change their minds and fly away to somewhere else. I have to mute my tv when they start up with the chop again. Which is every 5 seconds. Isn't that distracting/obnoxious to their own players?

[Lantern7]

And didn't they steal that from Florida State? Thinking about it. . . is there a team with a unique chant that doesn't start with "Lets go"?

Speaking of the Braves, I once spat on a fan at Shea in 2001. The Mets were going into their nosedive, this guy wouldn't shut up . . . really not proud of myself.

[Rick Kitchen]

2 minutes ago, Lantern7 said:

And didn't they steal that from Florida State? Thinking about it. . . is there a team with a unique chant that doesn't start with "Lets go"?

Speaking of the Braves, I once spat on a fan at Shea in 2001. The Mets were going into their nosedive, this guy wouldn't shut up . . . really not proud of myself.

 

Georgetown chants "Hoya Saxa", which doesn't really mean anything but does start off with "What a ..." in Greek.

[Moose135]

32 minutes ago, Lantern7 said:

Speaking of the Braves, I once spat on a fan at Shea in 2001.

Was Roger McDowell the Second Spitter?

[RedheadZombie]

2 hours ago, MattDuffysCat said:

If I was a Braves fan, I'd hate my fellow fans. That tomahawk chop, besides being annoying to listen to and offensive, makes all their fans look like possessed mindless drones. If an alien happened to land on the field while they were doing that, they'd change their minds and fly away to somewhere else. I have to mute my tv when they start up with the chop again. Which is every 5 seconds. Isn't that distracting/obnoxious to their own players?

I don't think so because the crowd is so quiet.  I would guess only about ten percent do the vocal part, and I would say one percent do the chop - mostly children and a few parents.  Now it was 90+ degrees and a lot of us were half dead, but I've been to several games and didn't see much difference.  I'm used to clapping when "my" players are announced up to bat, and I swear I was the only one in the entire stadium doing so for the Braves.  In their own stadium.  And they're actually in the process of building a new stadium.  These fans don't deserve it.

[cherrypj]

3 hours ago, RedheadZombie said:

And they're actually in the process of building a new stadium.  These fans don't deserve it.

These fans are getting the bill for it! Also, they want to move out of their 'old' stadium because it is in a bad neighborhood that they had 18 years to turn into a good neighborhood (like they promised in the first place). And now they are promising that the new location should subsidize the new stadium because a stadium will improve that neighborhood!

I'd be pissed, too.

[MyAimIsTrue]

8 hours ago, MattDuffysCat said:

If I was a Braves fan, I'd hate my fellow fans. That tomahawk chop, besides being annoying to listen to and offensive, makes all their fans look like possessed mindless drones.

The tomahawk chop (yes, stolen from Florida State) was first introduced in 1991, that magical worst to first season.  I lived there then and the players at the time said they loved it because there was a full stadium of fans chanting and it was a rallying cry.

These days I'd assume most players tune out what's going on in the stands.

[RedheadZombie]

9 hours ago, Lantern7 said:

And didn't they steal that from Florida State? Thinking about it. . . is there a team with a unique chant that doesn't start with "Lets go"?

Speaking of the Braves, I once spat on a fan at Shea in 2001. The Mets were going into their nosedive, this guy wouldn't shut up . . . really not proud of myself.

I was once spat upon by a Cub's fan in Wrigley Field.  I was a silent teenager wearing a Cardinal shirt, and he was on the stairs above me.  Charming fellow.  And his team had won.  Go Cubbies!

[Rick Kitchen]

I had Dodger fans throw popcorn at me when I was wearing my Giants jersey at a Dodger-Giant game in LA.

Speaking of which, ahem, Giants have a six game lead on the Dodgers.

[King of Birds]

A small group of kids - both Red Sox and Yankee fans-  had beer poured on us by obviously inebriated Yankee fans who had enough and threw their extra cups at us, on the 3rd deck of Shea Stadium, 1975 when original Yankee was getting a facelift. We were drenched. Red Sox were about to win a day/ night doubleheader, shutting out the Hated Ones both games. Definitely still top 10 baseball game I've ever been to, even with the beer incident.

Another great Fenway moment was when my Dad caught a foul ball hit by Dwight Evans, after Gaylord Perry had hit Fisk. We were checking the ball for scuffs, illicit materials, etc. I think I still have the ball around here someplace. Was sometime in 1974 I think. Holy crap I found the game.

Any of you know someone who has run on a field, or silly/ stupid stuff? Another game, we were getting pre-game autographs, and were right up next to the player - I think it was Rey Quiñones (some mid-80s Sox backup IF) and he took someone's ball with his signature and told me to give it to some girl nearby and to get her number for him. I did not complete his quest for booty. When driving home, I was justifying all this by saying "come on, he's a bench player!"

(ps for those who were on MLB-twop, I think I told at least one or two of these before. Sorry for the repeats, but... it's summer.)

[MVFrostsMyPie]

I was at an A's-Giants game at the Coliseum a few years ago and an A's fan who didn't show up until the 5th or 6th inning said we were in her seats (in all honesty it actually was an accident and we only needed to just move over 2 seats). She was yelling at us to move over, but she was standing in that precious space between one's legs and the row in front, so I told her as I was getting up, "you could at least move out of the row so we actually have enough room to move over without rubbing against each other, and I guess a please wouldn't hurt either". Well, that set her off and she proceeded to tell me I wasn't American because I was middle eastern (wtf?!), she yelled to my then-boyfriend that she felt sorry for him having such a miserable girlfriend and that she's 55 and has sons his age who are much happier and on and on and on. And no one did a single thing to stop her, which was even more humiliating. I stared ahead trying not to cry for the remainder of the game, and honestly, I haven't been able to set foot in the coliseum since then. My anxiety goes through the roof, even though I know it's an irrational reaction to a ballpark. Anyway, the A's won that game against the Giants, to add insult to injury, but guess what year it was? 2010 ;) I like to imagine that when the Giants won the WS that year, this drunk 55 year old racist woman was crying in a fetal position over the Giants victory.

Edited June 15, 2016 by MattDuffysCat

[MyAimIsTrue]

Okay, since we're talking about fun stadium events I got thrown out of the old Atlanta Fulton County Stadium twice on the same day.  This was in 1989 or 1990 when the Braves truly stunk and the now ex-husband person couldn't go to the game at the last minute so I went by myself.  No biggie.  It was a Sunday afternoon game and the stadium was practically empty so I bought a cheap general admission ticket and went to sit in an outfield section all by myself.  An usher came by and told me the section was closed (it wasn't roped off or anything) and that I had to move so I did until he left and then I went back to my outfield seat.  He came by again and proceeded to escort me out of the stadium.

After about five minutes I walked back in (hey, there was no one at the turnstiles) and went to a different outfield section but then he found me again and escorted me out again.  At that point I just decided to go home.  Fucking Braves probably lost anyway.

[Rick Kitchen]

I was almost kicked out of Anaheim Stadium with a couple of my friends.  We had gone up to the imported beer stand, and when we went back the way we came, there was a guard standing there barring our way.  We told him we had come that way, and he said, "No, no way, this area is blocked."  We insisted that we had come that way, and we would have to go all the way around the top deck to get back to our seats, but he threatened to have us kicked out if we didn't go another way.

[mojoween]

Other than sitting in the wrong seats at first, my one and only big league experience was without incident.  Bummer.

I love Ichiro.  I loved him as a Yankee, I wish he won a ring as a Mariner and he is one of the most beautiful humans on the planet.  But his Japan numbers should not be counted in his MLB total.  I don't understand how this is even a consideration.

[King of Birds]

14 hours ago, Rick Kitchen said:

We insisted that we had come that way, and we would have to go all the way around the top deck to get back to our seats, but he threatened to have us kicked out if we didn't go another way.

So, you circled the whole top deck to get back?

I'm glad to have been young and attending ballgames and getting to go walk around ballparks, up near dugouts and yell to players pregame, get autographs etc before the post-9/11 faux security overload, preventing fans from the 1% seating areas that pervades baseball now. I've only been to about four MLB games in the last seven years.  I've seen about 5 MILB games in the same period.

[MyAimIsTrue]

17 minutes ago, King of Birds said:

I've seen about 5 MILB games in the same period

I'll be in Wichita at the end of the month for a business trip and they have a minor league team called the Wingnuts.  If I can commandeer the rental car from whoever has it I will be going to a game since they have a homestand that week.

[attica]

OMG, having team gear that reads 'Wingnuts' would make my damn day. Although spending money in Brownback Country is decidedly against my current policy.

[AimingforYoko]

The rich look to get richer....at the Yankees' expense.

Theo knows the regular season is in the bag, it's all about October.

[MyAimIsTrue]

5 hours ago, attica said:

Although spending money in Brownback Country is decidedly against my current policy.

I'm having some issues with that as well.

[Lantern7]

Once again, there's a topic for minor league baseball.

Damn, the Mets woke the heck up tonight. Here's hoping it's not temporary.

[King of Birds]

6 hours ago, AimingforYoko said:

The rich look to get richer....at the Yankees' expense.

I can't imagine the Yankees trading both Miller and Chapman.

Maybe Miller and Chapman, separately go? I can only wish.

[tom87]

Freddie Freeman of Atlanta Braves hits for cycle against Cincinnati.

Took 11 innings but hey Atlanta will take what it can.

 

Congrats to Ichiro - #4,257 only 21 to 3,000  in the  MLB.

Quote

“It sounds like in Japan, they’re trying to make me the Hit Queen,” Rose told USA Today. 

   Pete shut up.

Edited June 16, 2016 by tom87

[StaceyNotStacie]

We've had nothing but good experiences at ballparks. We were in St. Louis about five years ago. My then 8yo stubbed his toe on the escalator and the hubby took him to the first aid area for a bandaid. He had to fill out an incident report and a few days later someone called to follow up on him. 

We went to Philadelphia to watch them play the Nationals a few years ago. The hubby and kids were decked out in Nats gear and we were heckled a bit throughout the city (the security guard at the Liberty Bell told us the bell was closed for Nats fans). The workers at the stadium were great. The Phillies won that game. We got a bit of a robbing, but it was all in good fun. 

Nats park is awesome. We try to go to at least one game a year.  The hubby and I have milestone birthdays this October, so a playoff game might be our birthday present this year. 

Edited June 16, 2016 by Stacey1014

[xaxat]

My favorite "bad fan" experience happened back in the early eighties. I was going to school in Boston, and the dorm arranged a group outing to Fenway. We got pretty good seats along the third baseline. A couple of rows below us, a really loud guy was yelling racist insults at Jim Rice, who was playing left field. Around the seventh inning, as Rice was leaving the field, he stopped, waved at the guy to get his attention, and flipped him off. 

The entire section broke out in a standing ovation for Rice.

[MyAimIsTrue]

Braves game, July 4, 1992.  It was a sweltering hot afternoon and before the game started Deion Sanders was signing autographs for a bunch of kids.  One little boy was sort of getting pushed over so Deion plucked him out of the stands and put him on his shoulders for a ride.  I'm sure there were cameras nearby as Deion never met a self promotion opportunity he didn't like but I'd like to believe his action was genuine.

[Lantern7]

David Wright is going to need surgery. Right now, the Mets are taking it out on the Pirates. Bartolo Colon hit one to the wall for a double, advanced to third on a bloop hit, and scored on a sac fly.

ETA: I got the SNY trivia question right. That never happens! They asked which three Mets played the most games at third base. One of the announcers (Keith? Ron?) was thinking Hubie Brooks, but I zeroes in on David Wright, Howard Johnson and Wayne Garrett.

[attica]

My worst park experience was in the 80s, Yankee Stadium mid-July. My company rented out a booth, which was fine, but since we were attending as representing the company (I think they paid for the giveaway that night), we had to be dressed in work duds. And in the 80s, that meant suits for the fellows and skirts/blazers for the womenfolk. And hosiery. Pantyhose in Yankee Stadium in mid-July. No Mattingly homer is worth that, I'm sorry. 

[King of Birds]

30 minutes ago, attica said:

Pantyhose in Yankee Stadium in mid-July.

There's the title of your autobiography!

[tom87]

I've been to over a dozen different ball parks and never had any bad experiences or dealt with bad fan behavior.

Only a few  little petty things  stick out.  In Boston the usher didn't have the slightest clue where seats were and tbh the way the set were arranged didn;t make sense anyway/  Yankee Stadium was like half hour opening up  Monument park to the huge line of people waiting.  I mean really it was just a walk thought how hard is it to let the people in.

Biggest disappoint was the the Dodger Dog was just a regular hot dog, nothing special. :)

Edited June 17, 2016 by tom87

[attica]

6 hours ago, King of Birds said:

There's the title of your autobiography!

No! I refuse to let that horrible memory define me! :)

[MyAimIsTrue]

6 hours ago, tom87 said:

Biggest disappoint was the the Dodger Dog was just a regular hot dog, nothing special. :)

My ex-husband practically bathed in the famous garlic fries at Telephone Company Name Park in San Francisco.  I detest the taste and smell of garlic and couldn't get away from him fast enough