Category Archives: Baseball

Wrong About The Mets, Right About The Nats

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The Mets celebrated their NL East championship on Saturday night, leaving the Nats stuck in their culture of underachievement. [Credit: Dayton Daily News]

The Mets cel­e­brat­ed their NL East cham­pi­onship on Sat­ur­day night, leav­ing the Nats stuck in their cul­ture of under­achieve­ment. [Cred­it: Day­ton Dai­ly News]

John Boehn­er shed the bur­den of what had become one of Washington’s most cheer­less jobs last week.  Next week, Matt Williams may fol­low him.

Both Boehn­er and the Wash­ing­ton Nation­als’ man­ag­er began the year with high expec­ta­tions.  Boehn­er presided over the largest GOP major­i­ty since 1931.  Williams led a high pay­roll team rich in tal­ent. Both were under­mined by peo­ple they were cho­sen to lead, then blamed for fail­ures that were the fault of their fol­low­ers. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Cheer Up Nats Fans, Mets Collapse Begins Today

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Mets' Ruben Tejada was credited with an inside-the-park home run last night, after Phillies RF Domonic Brown took a pratfall that turned a double into an inside-the-park home run. How success against the lowly Phillies masks the Mets weaknesses. [Credit: Washington Times]

Mets’ Ruben Teja­da scored eas­i­ly last night, after Phillies RF Domon­ic Brown took a prat­fall that turned a dou­ble into an inside-the-park home run. How suc­cess against the low­ly Phillies masks the Mets weak­ness­es. [Cred­it: Wash­ing­ton Times]

The Mets Melt­down begins today. They are 14–2 against the woe­ful Phillies, and just two games over .500 against the rest of the league.

Iron­i­cal­ly, win­ning six of sev­en games against the Phillies over the last ten days exposed New York’s vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties. Over those sev­en games, the Phillies aver­aged 5.7 runs per game. That’s near­ly two runs per game above their aver­age out­put for the rest of the sea­son. The Phillies are ranked 26th in run-scor­ing, but man­aged to tee off on Jason DeGrom and the Mets’ sus­pect bullpen, a sign that the vaunt­ed New York pitch­ing staff may be faltering.

Sep­tem­ber may very well ampli­fy this pitch­ing weak­ness. While they have romped over the Phillies, outscor­ing them 103–62 over the sea­son, their mar­gins against the Nats (38–34), Mar­lins (49–44) and Braves (69–52) are much clos­er and have relied more on dom­i­nant pitch­ing than hit­ting. If their pitch­ing stum­bles against the Phillies augur Sep­tem­ber strug­gles, then the Mets’ play­off hopes could vanish.

Their scor­ing binge against the Phillies has engen­dered hope that they can hit their way out of holes dug by bad pitch­ing. Not likely.The Mets are aver­ag­ing a lit­tle more than 4.1 runs per game, around the league mean. But when you back out the 103 runs they’ve scored in 16 games against the Phillies, they’re putting up an ane­mic 3.82 runs per game, which would rank them among the league’s worst.

There is good rea­son why 19 per­cent of the Mets offen­sive out­put has come against Philadel­phia. The Phils have the sec­ond worst pitch­ing in base­ball. Only the Rock­ies are worse and their ERA is mis­lead­ing­ly high since they play half their games in hit­ter-hap­py Coors Field. The Phillies pitch­ers can’t blame their home ball­park for the fact that they have giv­en up an aver­age of 5.07 runs per game. The Nats yield a run per game few­er, while Mia­mi (4.13) and Atlanta (4.71) are both much tougher to score on than the Phillies.

And, oh yeah, the Phillies poor pitch­ing is com­bined with a defense that is by far the worst in the majors. They have coughed up 85 more runs than a team of aver­age defen­sive com­pe­tence, accord­ing to Base­ball Ref­er­ence. Mean­ing that the Mets could pile on runs just by putting the ball in play, as last night’s tragi­com­ic inside-the-park home run by Ruben Teja­da illustrated.

New York’s dom­i­nance of the Phillies masks the fact that the Mets enter the stretch dri­ve as a lousy hit­ting team with weary arms.

The under­achiev­ing Nation­als don’t deserve to win the divi­sion but chances are that, a month from now, they will find them­selves cham­pi­ons of the Nation­al League Least.

High on Trump

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Donald Trump is leading the GOP pack heading into tonight's debate. Why that's good news for Democrats. [Credit: CBS Pittsburgh]

Don­ald Trump is lead­ing the GOP pack head­ing into tonight’s debate. Why that’s good news for Democ­rats. [Cred­it: CBS Pittsburgh]

The mar­i­jua­na dis­pen­sary on Down­ing Street is in a cozy Den­ver neigh­bor­hood, tucked amid cof­fee shops, bou­tiques and oth­er arti­facts of gen­tri­fi­ca­tion.  Enter­ing the store on a bright Sun­day morn­ing, I’m greet­ed by a glassy-eyed young man slumped in a chair with a large bowl of bud on his lap.  His job, in addi­tion to rolling ju-jus, is to check IDs, turn away minors and iden­ti­fy out-of-staters, whose pur­chas­es are lim­it­ed to one-quar­ter ounce per trans­ac­tion. Col­oradans can legal­ly buy four times that amount, the state’s law­mak­ers evi­dent­ly believ­ing that natives can han­dle their weed bet­ter than non-residents.

His col­leagues behind the counter are in a sim­i­lar­ly ami­ca­ble stu­por, but knowl­edge­able about their prod­uct and full of advice to pre­vent patrons from pulling a Mau­reen Dowd, the New York Times colum­nist who descend­ed into a para­noid delu­sion­al state after lock­ing her­self in a hotel room and wolf­ing down a THC-laced Sky Bar. The del­i­ca­cies at this shop are said to con­tain safe amounts of the active ingre­di­ent, enough to pro­duce a man­age­able eupho­ria that won’t end in an emer­gency room vis­it or inspire anoth­er loopy New York Times col­umn.

There is some­thing vague­ly sur­re­al about get­ting med­ical advice, how­ev­er sound, from peo­ple in a drug-induced haze at ten o’clock in the morn­ing.  The “wake and bake” crew at the mar­i­jua­na dis­pen­sary fits the car­i­ca­tures that oppo­nents of legal­iza­tion have sketched, mak­ing them a bad adver­tise­ment for their polit­i­cal cause.

Which brings me to Don­ald Trump. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Exiled From Natstown

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Washington Nationals Bryce Harper is the best player ever. Just ask him. (Credit: AP)

Bryce Harp­er is more than the face of the Wash­ing­ton Nation­als — he is the face of Wash­ing­ton, com­bin­ing high self-esteem with chron­ic under­achieve­ment. (Cred­it: AP)

The Wash­ing­ton Nation­als are a per­fect fit for the nation’s cap­i­tal, com­bin­ing invin­ci­ble self-esteem with chron­ic underachievement.

The Red­skins are neu­rot­ic, the Wiz­ards hun­gry, the Cap­i­tals con­vinced that cat­a­stro­phe awaits. The Nation­als fan­cy them­selves as repeat­ing cham­pi­ons, though they’ve nev­er played in a League Cham­pi­onship Series, much less a World Series.

That thor­ough­ly unjus­ti­fied air of supe­ri­or­i­ty emanates from the top, as I was again remind­ed last week­end when my wife and I were turned away from Nat­stown, the nick­name man­age­ment has giv­en its cook­ie-cut­ter ball­park.  Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Saving Mr. Banks’ Game

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Ernie Banks, who passed away last Friday, helped build a legacy that former Commissioner Bud Selig pissed away. Recovering from the Selig era will require big changes to the game. [Credit: Gannett]

Ernie Banks, who passed away last Fri­day, helped build a lega­cy that for­mer Com­mis­sion­er Bud Selig pissed away. Recov­er­ing from the Selig era will require big changes to the game. [Cred­it: Gannett]

Hall of Famer Ernie Banks, whose prodi­gious tal­ents were over­shad­owed by his irre­press­ible good cheer, passed away last Fri­day, two days before Bud Selig stepped down as base­ball commissioner.

Mr. Banks will be missed.

He was part of the gen­er­a­tion of African-Amer­i­can play­ers who trans­formed the sport dur­ing the 1950s and 1960s, help­ing build a fan base that dete­ri­o­rat­ed dur­ing Selig’s seem­ing­ly inter­minable 23-year tenure.  The task of restor­ing that fan base and sav­ing Mr. Banks’ game now falls to Selig’s suc­ces­sor. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Paying Bud Selig To Go Away

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Bud Selig will retire as baseball commissioner later this month, but not before doing the game irreparable harm. [Credit: CBS Sports]

Bud Selig will retire as base­ball com­mis­sion­er lat­er this month, but not before doing the game irrepara­ble harm. [Cred­it: CBS Sports]

Bud Selig is sched­uled to step down as base­ball com­mis­sion­er lat­er this month, but the efflu­ence of his 23 years of mis­rule con­tin­ues to pol­lute.  On Tues­day, his sludge will flow into Coop­er­stown, when the results of this year’s Hall of Fame bal­lot­ing are announced. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Phillies Have Returned To Form … Unfortunately

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The Phillies dropped a close game yesterday in Cincinnati, an all-too-common event for a team that has lost an unprecedented 10,502 times. (Credit: CSN Bay Area)

The Phillies dropped a close game yes­ter­day in Cincin­nati, leav­ing Gen­er­al Man­ag­er Ruben Amaro at a loss for answers. (Cred­it: CSN Bay Area)

The famil­iar anguish of being a Phillies fan is back.

I felt it again this past week when I attend­ed two games between the Phillies and Nation­als in Wash­ing­ton.  Just three years ago, this ball­park tucked between the Ana­cos­tia Riv­er and the US Capi­tol was known as “Cit­i­zens Bank Park South,” as bus­es dis­gorged Philadel­phia fans by the thou­sands who had drunk their way down I‑95 to watch their beloved Phillies beat up on the hap­less Nats.  They seemed to out­num­ber the home­town faith­ful and always made their unwel­come pres­ence felt.  They were rau­cous, some­times coarse, and usu­al­ly left hap­py, if obnox­ious­ly so.

Con­tin­ue read­ing →

A Super Bowl on Steroids

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After just two seasons, the Broncos' Von Miller already had failed two drug tests. But he'll be on the field in tonight's Super Bowl because cheating in football, unlike in baseball, doesn't bother us. [Credit: gtbets.eu]

After just two sea­sons, the Bron­cos’ Von Miller already had failed two drug tests. His absence from tonight’s Super Bowl is due to a knee injury, not PED use, because cheat­ing in foot­ball does­n’t seem to both­er us. [Cred­it: gtbets.eu]

A 315 pound man with a body mass index over 36 is con­sid­ered obese, accord­ing to the Nation­al Insti­tutes of Health. But if he can bench press 225 pounds 35 times, jump 32 inch­es ver­ti­cal­ly and run 40 yards in 4.8 sec­onds, he prob­a­bly plays in the NFL. And we prob­a­bly don’t care what he may have put into his body to facil­i­tate such feats.

Tonight an esti­mat­ed 110 mil­lion Amer­i­cans will watch tech­ni­cal­ly obese but sub­lime­ly ath­let­ic men con­tend for foot­ball suprema­cy. Our indif­fer­ence as to how they acquired such strength and ath­leti­cism expos­es a dou­ble stan­dard in our atti­tude toward ath­let­ic achieve­ment. We shame Alex Rodriguez and Lance Arm­strong as cheaters, but we’ll cheer on two teams whose ranks include sev­er­al play­ers who have been caught tak­ing per­for­mance-enhanc­ing drugs (PEDs) and no doubt many oth­ers who have avoid­ed detec­tion. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Why You’ll Watch The Eagles-Bears Game Tonight

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It won't be a Very Brady pre-Christmas game on Sunday night, as NBC will feature Nick Foles and the Eagles against the Bears, rather than Tom Brady and the Patriots vs. the Ravens. [Credit: warroomphilly.com]

It won’t be a Very Brady pre-Christ­mas game on Sun­day night, as NBC will fea­ture Nick Foles and the Eagles against the Bears, rather than Tom Brady and the Patri­ots vs. the Ravens. [Cred­it: warroomphilly.com]

Foot­ball com­bines the two worst things about Amer­i­ca: it is vio­lence punc­tu­at­ed by com­mit­tee meet­ings.  – George Will

The NFL has decid­ed that today’s fea­tured game – played at night dur­ing prime­time, rather than dur­ing the after­noon – will be the Philadel­phia Eagles against the Chica­go Bears. That deci­sion shows just how con­fi­dent the league is that you will watch just about any game they decide to air, a well-ground­ed con­fi­dence built on decades of sol­id leadership.

They could have put the Bal­ti­more-New Eng­land game in the slot.  It pits the reign­ing Super Bowl Cham­pi­on Ravens against Tom Brady and the Patri­ots.  It seems a bet­ter rat­ings-get­ter. Tom Brady is an elite quar­ter­back who has won 3 Super Bowls, done GQ cov­ers and has a super­mod­el wife. Your sis­ter knows who Tom Brady is.  Ask her if she’s heard of Nick Foles.  Or Jay Cut­ler. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

A‑Rod Is Right: Put Selig Under Oath

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Alex Rodriguez wants Bud Selig to answer questions about his role in baseball's long-running steroid scandal. [Credit: philly.com]

Alex Rodriguez wants Bud Selig to answer ques­tions about his role in base­bal­l’s long-run­ning steroid scan­dal. [Cred­it: philly.com]

Alex Rodriguez has a point.

The Yan­kee third base­man, who is appeal­ing his 211-game sus­pen­sion for sus­pect­ed use of per­for­mance-enhanc­ing sub­stances, stormed out of an arbi­tra­tion hear­ing last week and onto a New York sports radio pro­gram, where he deliv­ered a ram­bling, self-serv­ing and emo­tion­al screed against the pro­ceed­ings and the man who ordered his sus­pen­sion, Major League Base­ball Com­mis­sion­er Allan Huber (Bud) Selig. A‑Rod is angry that Selig did not appear at the pro­ceed­ings and go under oath.

A‑Rod is right about one thing: Bud Selig has a lot of explain­ing to do. Con­tin­ue read­ing →