1 Happy St

Via ESPN Rumor Central: The Pittsburgh Pirates have contacted free agent pitcher Pedro Martinez and would be interested if the price is right, the Pittsburgh Post Gazette reported.

I have no problem living in a time when major newspapers in NY, LA, and Chicago are bankrupt. I have no problem living in a time when my house is worth half of what it was worth 4 years ago. I have no problem living in a time when the unemployment rate is near 10%. But I'll be damned if I will accept living in a time when Pedro Martinez is a pitcher for the Pirates.

Some time earlier in the week while I was either finishing up my Christmas shopping or shoveling my driveway for the 80th time or watching a rerun episode of Roseanne or throwing rocks at passing cars from an overpass, the Yankees signed Mark Teixeira to play 1st base for the next 8 years. I know what you're thinking: Roseanne? Yeah, about a month ago, MeTV was showing an old Thanksgiving episode. It was one of them with Nanna Mary (or is it Nanna Marie?) and it's a classic and I always enjoyed it, so I set my DVR to tape it. Somehow though I ended up setting my DVR to tape every episode any time it airs on any station ever and I just haven't gotten around to fixing it yet. So any given day, I'll check my DVR for things that have taped and I'll have a backlog of 4 or 5 Roseanne episodes on there. Whatever. Don't judge me.

Anyway, so the Yankees signed Mark Teixeira for 8 years and eleven billionty dollars (or is it billiondy?). He's a good hitter and a good fielder and he makes the Yankees better and this is just another example of the rich getting richer and blah blah blah gayness. I was intrigued by the signing though because it meant that the Yankees had somehow managed to sign 3 of the top free agents so far this winter who are worth a shit when being graded for their overall baseball skilz. Yeah that's how I spell skilz. How do you spell it? With an S? Two L's? Ha! Child's play. So afterwards, I was so intrigued that I took an unscientific poll of non-Yankee fans to get their reactions to the amount of money that was spent. On average, my poll found two different responses.

1. This is insane. MLB needs a salary cap.
2. This is insane. Every member of the Yankees front-office should kill themselves.

Granted, my unscientific poll consisted of me and my brother-in-law. But the results I think would have been the same with a greater number of participants. I don't have a whole lot of knowledge when it comes to basic economic principles, so I can't really address whether or not MLB needs a salary cap. But I think I have enough knowledge when it comes to basic asshole principles to address whether or not the Yankees' entire front-office should kill themselves. If you're an asshole, the whole world would be better off if you killed yourself; that's a given. So the questions become 'what factors make someone an asshole and do these factors apply to the Yankees front-office''? I think being an asshole comes down to 5 things:

Do people hate you?
Do you not care that people hate you?
Do you do things specifically to make people hate you?
Do you live in New York?
Do people call you "asshole"?

If the answer is yes to at least 1 of those questions, then yes, you are an asshole. So how does the front-office of the New York Yankees stand up? They're a whopping 5 for 5.

Hank Steinbrenner, we'll start with you.

Have you ever stopped and wondered why every MLB field has different dimensions? Don't answer that; it was rhetorical. Of course you've never stopped and wondered that. Only I stop and wonder silly things like that. But hear me out for a second.

Just a couple of examples: the right field foul pole at Fenway Park is 302 feet from home plate. On a good day, I could reach back and throw a baseball that far (probably not). At Petco Field, the right field pole is 322 feet away from home plate. Obviously, left handed pull hitters have a much better advantage playing at Fenway than they would by playing at Petco. With a little research, I could probably come up with a much better example than that one where the two fields I'm comparing have much different dimensions. But my point is this - every park is different. Some favor hitters, some favor pitchers, some favor neither.

Now imagine if the NFL allowed this. For instance, we all know that the Ravens have always been a better defensive team than offensive. So to exploit this, what if they decided to make their field 150 yards instead of 100? Opposing offenses would have further to go to score, which would give their defense an even bigger advantage than they already had coming in.

That'd be silly, right? So why does MLB allow it?

Okay, I'm shutting it now.

The Brewers essentially fired Dale Sveum.
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The team said Friday that Dale Sveum is no longer under consideration to become manager. Sveum was promoted from his coaching position and served as interim manager after Ned Yost was fired with 12 games left in the regular season. The Brewers reached the postseason for the first time since 1982, but lost to Philadelphia in four games in the opening round of the playoffs.
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I always think its unfair when the interim manager gets fired, but it seems especially unfair in this case. Here he was enjoying his job as an assistant coach when all of the suddedn the top guy got fired with only 12 games to go. So he got promoted to fill in for the last 2 weeks. Then the season ended, and now he's being fired completely. Isn't that unfair? Imagine a similar scenario at your job. Your boss gets fired, so the top executives ask you to fill in while they look for someone to fill the position. After they fill it, they fire you completely rather than letting you go back to your old job. Son of a.....

That sucks.

Jose Canseco is saying that he regrets writing a book where he named names about who in MLB was using steroids. During the A&E Network program "Jose Canseco: The Last Shot," Canseco said he regrets mentioning players as steroid users and that he never realized it would blow up the way it did and hurt so many people. He said he wanted revenge on baseball because he believed he had been forced out of the game and the book was his means of getting even.

Hmm, that sucks that he feels bad. Maybe he can write a book about it.

I am going to give you a quick Q and A between the CEO of a Major League Baseball team and the host of a local radio show. I'm gonna modify one of the details from his answer and I want to see if you can guess which team he's the CEO for.
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Q. What are the implications of the new ballparks in New York?

A. Gigantic revenue increases for the New York Yankees, who are particularly the ones that impact us. We’ve got to continue to find new revenue sources in order to keep up. We refer to [our ballpark] as the ‘Little Engine That Could.’ Well, the Yankees are building a gigantic bullet train. We’ve got to remember that we are in a competitive division and part of a special rivalry. We’ve got to generate the revenues we need to keep pace, as best we can, with a Goliath.
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Okay, give up? Which team's CEO could possibly be complaining about the Yankees and their never-ending stream of revenue?

Why, it's Red Sox CEO Larry Lucchino. The CEO of those pesky DEFENDING CHAMPIONS. The CEO of the team that has sold out Fenway Park every game since May of 2003. The team that 2 years ago paid over $50 million JUST TO BID ON A PLAYER. The team with a $133 million annual payroll. The team that charges $325 PER SEAT for their best ticket.

Yeah, sometimes it's tough to be the little guy.

Today is MLB's amateur draft. I made mention of it last year when I lamented (good word) that some of the players who would be selected were born in 1989. Then I came up with a list of things that these kids probably weren't familiar with:

- if a song from Van Halen or Bon Jovi came on the radio, they probably wouldn't know who it was. That's probably a good thing for them, so bad example.
- they don't remember when our current President's dad was the President. Another bad example? I can keep going.
- they've never paid for gas when it was under $2 per gallon.
- they only have faint memories of when Michael Jordan was a good basketball player.
- they've never gone to the movies and paid less than $8.
- they don't remember when Christopher Reeve was Superman, Michael Keaton was Batman, and we didn't have a Spiderman.
- they've probably never been to a baseball card show.
- they don't remember when Mike Tyson's Punchout had the best graphics of all time.

then Greg added "it's very sad but [my son] only knows Michael Jordan as the guy who played basketball in the Bugs Bunny movie"

then I added, "then again, there's probably an entire generation of people who find it sad that we only know of Muhammad Ali as that guy with Parkinson's." <---wow that was mean.

Well if some of last year's players were born in 1989, you know what that means, right? Holy shit - 1990. Some kid who was born in the friggin' 1990's will become a millionaire today. He was being born at the same time that C&C Music Factory was making me sweat. He was being born at the same time that I was being introduced to Frank Thomas. He was being born at the same time the neighbor kid Sean Anderson was introducing me to dirty magazines for the first time. Just kidding Mom. But not really. Why do you think I kept going over to his house? It wasn't because he was my friend.

But anyway, I guess what I'm saying is that we have reached the point where kids who were born in the 1990's will soon be joining the workforce. Are you ready for that?

If you're like me, you no longer have a rooting interest in Major League Baseball's 2007 season. You're still going to watch the remainder of the playoff games and you still love baseball, but you couldn't care less who wins because your favorite team has been eliminated.

If you're even more like me, this probably angers you. You want there to be a reason to watch these games aside from your love of baseball. You want to root for somebody. Anybody. You want to have a reason to continue putting up with commercials for "Frank TV" (whose George Bush impression is spot-on by the way). Well I think I may have one for you, and it's Indians pitcher Paul Byrd. Consider this article:

Two years ago, Byrd was pitching for the Angels when his younger son, Colby, 7, made an observation that left him reeling. Colby, as unimpressed with his father as only a son can be, told Byrd that if he was any good, he would be pitching for the Yankees.

"He would play this baseball video game and say, 'You know, dad, your stuff's not very good,''' Byrd recalled Tuesday in an interview with FOXSports.com. "He asked, 'Why are the Yankees always so good? Every video game we get, they've got the best team.' I explained to him that they spend a lot of money on players. If a player is really good, they try to trade for him. Usually, they have kind of an All-Star team. He kind of tucked that away in his memory," Byrd continued. "About two months later, I was signing autographs. He said, dead serious, 'Why would anyone want your autograph?' He said, 'You're not any good, you're just average.' I said, 'I've been pitching in the big leagues about 10 years. I've done this and that.' He said, 'Dad, if you were any good, the Yankees would have traded for you.'

Too funny. Paul Byrd may be just an average pitcher, but he's also got a son who is comedy gold. And for that, I now have a rooting interest in the ALCS. Go Byrd. Er, Go Indians!

These are the jerseys that the National League All Stars will be wearing tonight during the Home Run Derby and during warm ups tomorrow before the Midsummer Classic. The All Star Game this year is being held in San Fancisco's AT&T Park.

As warm up jerseys go, these look fine, but I can't help but think that the Golden Gate Bridge makes the word look like "NATHONAL". Am I wrong?

I can't be the only one who's noticed this. Didn't anyone else think to point out that it's probably a bad idea to make the word appear "lispy" when the game is being held in San Francisco? And is anyone going to buy a Sanchez jersey?

On Tuesday it was reported here by Derek Zumsteg, author of a book titled "The Cheater's Guide to Baseball", that Los Angeles Angels pitcher Francisco Rodriguez is doctoring the ball before he throws it. He goes into pretty good detail (with pictures) of what he perceives to be blatant cheating, since MLB rules make it pretty clear that it's illegal for a pitcher to put a substance of any kind on the ball.

Normally, I couldn't care less about something like this. I'm the kind of person who likes cheating in baseball. I'm rooting for Barry Bonds to break Hank Aaron's HR record just so it gives the people who care (again, not me) something to cry about and me something to laugh about. But seeing as though there is now an entire book on the subject, there's no denying that it remains a hot topic for people. And I don't ignore hot topics. So my 2 cents:

I think MLB should simply remove all the 'no cheating' rules and allow these guys to do whatever they want. If they want to bulk up to 300 lbs of muscle using illegal performance enhancing drugs, so be it. If they want to dip the baseball in a jar of vaseline before they throw it, I say go right ahead. At least then every team would finally be on a level playing field. I think our biggest problem to date hasn't been with the players who continue to break the rules, but rather our inability to think outside the box for a viable solution. The powers that be will never be able to prevent cheating altogether, so they should embrace it!

[this message does not necessarily reflect the opinion of 1happyst, but only that of Brian, who with this post has officially killed any chances of ever being offered the job of Commissioner of MLB]

Here's an exerpt from Joe Buck's Diary from yesterday, July 11th, 2006...

6:30 am - My alarm clock goes off awaking me to the relaxing sounds of Yanni. I got out of bed and opened the curtains to a gorgeous view of Pittsburgh. Our room looks right out over the Allegheny River. I heated up some water in the hotel room microwave and brewed an herbal tea. It was about this time that Tim woke up and yelled, "How can you listen to that crap?!" and hit the snooze button and covered his head with his pillow. Just give it a chance, Tim!

7:15 am - After reading the complimentary USA Today left outside our hotel room and eating a bran muffin from the continental breakfast, I began my morning Yoga routine.

7:25 am - Tim got out of bed, turned off my "Sounds of Nature" CD and said, "Someone ought to shoot that ****ing bullfrog!" Then Tim went back to bed.

8:06 am - I put on my running clothes and go out for a jog. I left the room but waited by the door to see if Tim made any noise after I left and sure enough... He turned on the TV. Sounded like he was watching Fairly Odd Parents. He loves that show. If there's one thing Tim McCarver loves, its little fairies.

8:38 am - I love the shuffle function on my iPod. When else would you ever hear "Lose Yourself" by Eminem followed by "Meet Me in St. Louis" by Judy Garland?

9:25 am - I just got back to the hotel. Tim's in the shower. It looks like he ordered up some breakfast. Looked like bacon and eggs. I keep warning him that if he keeps eating like that, I'll be doing play-by-play at the World Series with Lou Piniella... and nobody wants that.

9:53 am - Tim's FINALLY out of the shower. Time for some sight-seeing around Pittsburgh. I'm trying to talk Tim into taking me to the Andy Warhol Museum.