2011 World Series Preview

Neither the Yankees nor the Red Sox are in the World Series, but contrary to popular belief there still will be a Fall Classic played this year and it starts tonight. Most of you probably don't care unless you have money involved but there will be a few really good baseball players on display.

As far as the National League representative, the Cardinals are having a UCONN type run this season. 10.5 games out in late August, they were the benefactors of that other epic collapse that nobody really talked about. The old cliche about just get in and take it one game at a time has been applicable here, as LaRussa and his boys have found themselves with home field advantage in the World Series (ironically thanks in large part to the guy they just beat Prince Fielder's domination of the All Star game). So how do the two squads you didn't really pay any attention to all year stack up against each other?

Pitching- Both teams have pretty decent starting pitching despite the fact that the Cardinals bullpen actually worked more innings than their starters in the NLCS. LaRussa is well known for utilizing as many statistics as possible and (some would say) overmanaging, so expect more of the parade of relief pitchers this series. St. Louis also employs the first ever female pitcher in Major League Baseball history, a fire ball slinging southpaw by the name of Whitney Starkington. Though little used, she's sure to dominate the pre game coverage and the ESPN human interest stories. Although St. Louis lost Adam Wainwright early in the season and Chris Carpenter got off to a snail-slow start, the starters picked it up in September and as previously mentioned, that bullpen was lights out. The Rangers aren't as imposing without last year's ace Cliff Lee on the mound but they still have a solid rotation. Also, the late season addition of Cuban dissident and midget Julio Mariposa added some grit to their already tough bullpen. Free spirited C.J. Wilson suffered a blister on his throwing hand last series but he's expect to play which is a plus for Texas.

Advantage: Rangers

Offense- Both Texas and St. Louis have ridiculously potent offenses so expect lit up scoreboards and the over to be in play every game. Most of the spotlight will be on best player in the game and one guy who Hater J actually doesn't hate: Phat Albert Pujols aka El Hombre. Pujols plays a slick first base but he's been absolutely tearing it up along with breakout star and ALCS MPV David Frees. Add Matt Holliday at DH and the Cardinals offense is looking very formidable. Rounding out the lineup is only the second Cambodian player in MLB history, Kat Tran a switch hitting chemistry major and poet laureate from Stanford. Tran burst on the scene in July and hasn't looked back since sparking Tran Fever in St. Louis. Texas's offense is no slouch though, as the Tigers learned last week. Nelson Cruz is having a 2004 Beltranesque playoffs and he's surrounded by big bats in Josh Hamilton and SS Elvis Andrus, forming one of the scarier lineups in baseball today. Someone who's been struggling lately is Johnny "Greasy J" Cifaretto, the self proclaimed "One armed guido" who despite having only one arm and being a guido has managed to hit only .075 this postseason. Ron Washington's insistence on starting Cifaretto has led to some rumors of gambling debts or other shady going ons behind the scenes. Catcher Mike Napoli has provided a lift with his big bat and sturdy defense behind the plate. Both offenses should be ready to slug it out and it will certainly be fun to watch.

Advantage: Cardinals (by a hair)

My pick: Cardinals in 6.

Play Ball!

The Greatest Yankee Loss Ever

I've never been so happy to see the Yankees lose. The late season schedule resulted in the strange situation of Boston fans rooting for the Yankees and some Yankee fans (myself included of course) rooting against our own team. The result was a wacky, mixed up evening of misplaced loyalties and historic choking. I half expected to see AJ Burnett come out of the visiting bullpen and hit Evan Longoria in the face with a pie.

For a while there it seemed like we were headed for a one game play-in in Tampa tomorrow at best, and at worst the Red Sox clinching in Baltimore last night. The Yankees were playing like the Yankees, hitting grand slams and whatnot, and the Red Sox were clinging to a one run lead over an Orioles team who looked ready to start their vacations. But then in an occurrence that only a hackneyed sports writer could come up with, the rains came pouring down in Baltimore (get it? it's like symbolic). And while the Boston players sat anxiously in the clubhouse, they got to see the horrifying sight of the Rays rallying from a 7 run deficit to tie the game in the 8th inning. I can only imagine the looks on their faces being something similar to people watching the premiere of that new Kevin Dillon sitcom. Meanwhile, my face looked a little more like this from my couch.

So finally, game play resumed at Camden and Boston attempted to shake off what they'd just witnessed and do their part to keep their season alive. It looked like it might happen too. But then, something glorious happened. Papelbon's fish face firmly in place, the now 90% Red Sox Nation crowd ready to explode (this really isn't too much different from any Red Sox game at Baltimore these days), the Yanks and Rays now tied in extra innings creating hope that maybe the Sox could still pop some champagne before the night was over...and then Papelbon gave up two straight doubles. And Carl Crawford misplayed a line drive resulting in the winning run. Just 3 MINUTES LATER, Evan Longoria hit his 2nd home run in 3 innings to send the slightly more than half filled Tropicana field into hysterics and Boston fans to another long winter of discontent. Now, things can get back to normal. I can root for the Yankees as usual without any of that pesky hate that forces me out of my normal sports rooting routines. See ya next year, Boston.

Shut Up, Old Man! The Wild Card is Awesome

During last night's Yankees Rays broadcast, YES Network play by play man and all around douche bucket Michael Kay was seemingly caught in his own douchiness by Al Leiter. After Kay did one of his "ahhh October baseball pennant races, ain't life grand?" routines following the reading of significant out of town scores, Leiter pointed out that Kay was against the wild card. A clearly flustered Kay shot back "why are you jumping on me?" in that classic passive aggressive "boys will be boys joking around but I realize you just OWNED me" way that he has. And herein lies the problem with the old fogey baseball "purist": He forces himself to hate change simply because it's change even if it makes the sport so much more enjoyable.

Baseball, more so than any other sport, values tradition and history almost to a comical point. The uproar over changes that obviously benefit game play and fan enjoyment such as instant replay and interleague play are clear examples of this. Just because something didn't exist when Honus Wagner was trotting around the ol' diamond and you could get a sarsaparilla and a trolley ticket for 25 cents, doesn't mean that it's wrong. And just as the speed and strength of players and technological advancements have resulted in instant replay, so to have gradual changes necessitated the wild card. The fact of the matter is, there's more teams than there were back in the old days and more fan bases that need reason to leave their home and 50 inch HD flat screen to plunk down extraordinary prices at their local stadium. Bob Costas and Michael Kay might think that letting more than 2 teams into the post season is heresy, but Major League Baseball is a business, and as a business they can't afford to lose 90% of their audience that knows they have no chance at a playoff berth by mid summer. It might make the pennant race in Boston and New York a little more tense and exciting, but since when did the rest of the country care about them?

It's not like the all inclusive system in the NBA (everyone's a winner!) where you have to be truly awful not to qualify for the playoffs. We're still talking about 8 teams out of 30 that are playing in October every season. It's easy for Michael Kay or some of the older writers and broadcasters that work at a national level to bash the Wild Card system. The Yankees are in it every year, as are most of the other big market teams (except the Dodgers). I like the fact that there's some hope in Milwaukee and wherever else every season. Kay followed the above exchange up by repeating a Bob Costas anecdote. If there was a Wild card back when Bobby Thomson hit the so-called "shot heard 'round the world", we would have heard "The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!...and the Dodgers win the wild card". It's a funny line but truthfully, if the rules were the same now as they were then, no one would care about a Red Sox-Orioles or Cardinals-Astros game this week. And the old men would sleep soundly knowing that everything had stayed the same.

Tip Included . . . Not

If you lucky enough to afford field level seating at Yankee Stadium, you don't have to fetch your food and drink, but instead can have it delivered directly to you. You'll pay an additional twenty percent service fee for the convenience and any "additional gratuity" you deem necessary. Funny thing about this involuntary service fee is that your server doesn't get the full twenty percent. Instead, servers receive about five percent of their gross sales, but would presumably receive the full amount of any additional gratuity. Servers, however, are not permitted to explain the fee to customers, so it's highly unlikely they receive any additional gratuity from people that think they just tipped twenty percent. This is what a new class action lawsuit against Legendary Hospitality alleges.

I understand that Legendary Hospitality (co-owned by New York Yankees, the Dallas Cowboys, and Goldman Sachs) is a business trying to maximize profits, but obviously they're taking advantage of their customers and their servers in this case. I am fine with them charging more for the convenience of getting your food delivered directly to you, i.e. having a different price list for the items. Instead of their being a different price list though, there is a disclaimer on the cup holders stating, "A 20% service charge will be added to all listed prices. Any additional gratuity is at your discretion." This suggests to the customer that the items are priced the same and that they're tipping their server when they pay the fee. In reality, the items are actually twenty percent more expensive and they're not tipping their server.

Here is my problem with this arrangement. If people knew they were paying twenty percent more and not tipping their server, they would realize they would have to pay a thirty percent premium on their order (assuming they tip at least ten percent) to tip decent. If I knew that, I would probably go get what I wanted myself rather than pay twenty percent more and not tip, or pay thirty percent more to tip decent. Not everybody would go this route, but I think it would be enough people to make the concessions significantly less profitable over the course of a season.

I believe that the people running the concessions at Legendary know this, so they reasoned that if they suggest that this mark up is actually a gratuity, people would be okay with paying the mark up. By not letting the customer know that this is not a gratuity, Legendary is taking advantage of people's good nature (wanting to tip the servers) and the servers by depriving them of money that customers intend to be their tip. I'm okay with charging more, but be honest about it. That way people can decide for themselves whether it's worth the cost.

Why I Hate The Mets 2011 Season

I've been a Mets fan since the minute I started watching baseball. I guess it was easy in the beginning since I started watching around 1985. Back in those days the Yanks were suffering through some of the worst years of the franchise and the Mets were winning with a bunch of crazy drunks. The raw talent of a pitcher like Dwight Gooden was amazing, at least until the DWI's and the crack. It is sad to think that the Gooden may be the last great homegrown Mets pitcher.

I was out this weekend and a Yankee fan straight up asked me "Why are you a Mets fan?" I was able to come up with an answer but it took me five minutes to rationalize this decision. This year I'm fed up. I'm not going to give up on my team but I'm going to declare they have officially burned up all my patience. Now today we hear that Chris Young, who has been perhaps the best starting pitcher they have had so far this season, re-injured his shoulder and is likely out for the season. This comes right on the back of the news that their best pitching prospect, Jenry Mejia, needs Tommy John Surgery. What the hell is wrong with the Mets medical and training staff? This is not an isolated incident, the Mets players routinely fall apart (I'm looking at you Mr. Reyes).

This is all indicative of what is sure to be a long and torturous season where I have to listen to Yankee fans complain about Derek Jeter only hitting .275 and how Rafael Soriano is a terrible set-up man while they waltz into the post season. METS PLEASE WAKE UP AND GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER!!

Jim Thome - Hall of Fame?

The real life Paul Bunyan, Jim Thome, is within weeks of hitting his 600th home run. Consider two facts: one, that Thome has never been linked to performance-enhancing drugs; and two, that every non-steroid player who has ever hit 500 or more home runs has made the Hall of Fame. Makes a strong case for the big doofy lumberjack.

The positive: 589 home runs (8th all-time), 1627 RBIs (30th), .559 slugging (20th), .404 on-base (49th), 1535 runs (57th), and 5 all-star game appearances.

The negative: .277 average, 2401 strike-outs (2nd), 0 MVPs, 0 World Series Rings (he was on the Indians team that lost in the 11th inning to the Marlins, and the Philles won 3 years after he left the team). Also, he was not known as a good defensive player.

Does he make it to Cooperstown? Would he fit through the door frame?

YES and MAYBE.

2011 Baseball Predictions

Yeah, big surprise. The team that spent a crapload of money to sign a bunch of all-star pitchers is going to beat the rest of the league. The other team that spent zillions of dollars, the Red Sox, will come in second. Eighty percent of the teams will have no shot at all, with their puny salaries which amount to roughly what the Yankees spend on cleaning supplies. Anyway, here's how the 2011 season will play out:

AL Playoff Teams:

Red Sox
Twins
Seattle
Yankees (Wild Card)

NL Playoff Teams:

Phillies
San Fran
Cubs
Cincinnati (Wild Card)

Red Sox over Seattle, Twins over Yankees
Red Sox over Twins

Philly over Cincy, Cubs over San Fran
Phillies over Cubs

Philly over Red Sox

MVPs:

Pujols
A-Rod

Cy Young:

Roy Halladay
Buchholz

You can count on it.