TDA Bullpen - Our Writers' Blog

Friday, March 25, 2005

Opening Day Looms
Why April is my favorite time of year

The first pitch of the 2005 Major League season is just over a week away. No matter if your team is a perennial contender or a regular basement dweller, a high payroll or a low payroll team, you have to be at the ball park on opening day.

I've already purchased tickets for 10 Seattle Mariners games including opening day, and there isn't much doubt that I will see more games than that. Even though I live over 2 hours north of Seattle and in another country, going to the ball park to watch a major league game is about the best thing you can do on any given day.

The last few days I have begun to get really antsy. When I'm sitting at the dinner table or in front of my computer, my legs shake uncontrollably. When my wife speaks to me I am off in a fog, totally oblivious to what she is saying. I find myself very nervous at times. You would think that it was me taking the bump for the Mariners on opening day instead of their probable starter Jamie Moyer.

Training camps are beginning to wind down in Florida and Arizona. Rosters are starting to take shape, and if a player hasn't solidified a spot on their team yet they are running out of time. General managers, managers and coaches will have some last minute decisions to make, but most organizations probably have a pretty good idea as to who will be on the 25 man roster to start the season.

When the season begins, bench bosses like Seattle's new skipper Mike Hargrove have to set up their rotation and bullpen, fiddle with lineups and make key moves during the games to help their team win. Decisions, decisions, decisions.

With the Mariners opener only 9 days away I have to start thinking about some of the decisions that I have to make pertaining to the game.

It all starts the morning of the game. What Mariners jersey will I wear on opening day- the home white one or the alternate home jersey? As much as I like my authentic New Era Mariners cap, my favorite is the one the team wears during spring training and in warm-up before the game. I'll probably go with that one.

Next I have to decide what border crossing I am going to go to. I'll listen to the border report on the radio, but the wait time they give never seems right. How can 50 cars be a five minute wait? I want to get to the game as early as possible, so this decision is crucial. The border guard had better not make any wisecrack jokes about the Mariners 99 losses last season. Also, I know it's a standard question but I always find it amusing that the guard asks my best friend and I where we are going. We are both decked out in as much Mariners gear as possible. Maybe the next souvenirs I buy at Safeco Field should be a license plate holder and a bumper sticker. Maybe I should glue one of the three Ichiro bobble head dolls I own to the dashboard. These things might get me through the border a little quicker and save me from the idle chatter with the border guard.

After arriving at the park the biggest decisions of the day will soon be made. What kind of food am I going to eat? There are always vendors outside the stadium trying to sell you food at a much cheaper price than what you would pay inside. I try to avoid these people as best I can because I know that even if I eat something outside before the game, there is about a 100% chance that I will cram something down my grill when I get inside the stadium.

One of my favorite food places to hit at a Mariners game is the sushi bar. They have something called the Ichiro-roll. How creative. I wonder if Ichiro's teammate and fellow countryman Shigetoshi Hasegawa is offended that they don't have a roll named after him. I guess it makes sense that there is no such thing as a Boone roll.

During the game you must have the baseball fans ultimate munchie- sunflower seeds. I usually gaze at the empty bag in astonishment at the end of the game and wonder how I could have possibly eaten that many spits. It's amazing how many of them you can eat when you wash them down with 3 large Pepsi. I can't taste any food for a week after attending a baseball game because the salt from the seeds has eaten away at my taste buds. I guess that is the reason they use salt on icy roads.

The seventh inning stretch is a time for fans to get up out of their seats and sing baseballs long time standard "Take Me Out To The Ballgame". Myself and several thousand other fans use this time for something more important. Some use it to go to the washroom one last time before the end of the game and the long ride home. Others use it as an opportunity to get one last thing to eat before the final out is recorded. I choose the latter. I like to finish the day off with a nice bowl of clam chowder. It is a perfect way to end a great day of eating. I don't know what they put in that soup that makes it taste so good. It must be cream in the broth and not just plain milk. Maybe it's that tiny little bit of oil that you see floating at the top of the styrofoam bowl. It couldn't just be the clams that make it so satisfying!

When the game ends (hopefully after a Mariners win) it's time for the long ride home. My stomach always seems to be a bit closer to the steering wheel than it was on the trip down to the game. I've noticed that the border guard often asks me what the final score in the game was. It seems like a test and I wonder if I get the score wrong, will I be pulled aside for a thorough search of my vehicle. I wish they would just ask me what I had to eat at the game because I am sure I could recall that a lot quicker than the actual game and its final outcome.

Spring is in the air and flowers are in bloom. The NCAA Final Four is almost here. Golf fans are excited because April means The Masters, and the awarding of the coveted green jacket.

Baseball fans are excited because opening day looms and every team begins the season with the same record and every fan is optimistic about his or her team's chances.

April is my favorite month of the year.

Play Ball!

posted by Dean Swanton 11:53 PM

Tuesday, March 22, 2005

Crazy Like a Fox!

We think perhaps General Barry McCaffrey, former White House Drug Czar, has been hanging out with Yogi Berra, or maybe the former managing general partner of the Texas Wrangers....his unsolicited advice to baseball was that it adopt stricter standards on steroids enforcement, claiming, and this is a direct quote, "You cannot have the chickens guarding the coop." It's mastery of metaphor like that that produced that big victory in the War on Drugs on McCaffrey's watch...not surprisingly, some actual experts on the real steroids problem in high school have said that the Congressional hearings will backfire, as they've merely drawn more attention to their availability.

What Kind of Crack is Peter Gammons Smoking?

Amidst the perhaps unshocking news that Barry Bonds may sit out the entire year, the always hilarious Gammons wrote an ESPN column touting the depth (!) of the Giants lineup, headlined (originally) "Giants Can Win Without Bonds"....this and other parallel universes coming up on the next episode of Stargate SFG-1....not to be one of those cynical liars of the media Mr. Bonds is so fond of cracking on, but bowing out this season cannot be seen as anything but a McGwire-esque duckout, physical problems or no. If you assume Bonds did steroids, sitting out for a year will prevent him from taking a positive test, or alternatively, testing negative and then coming up a mere shadow of his former self (remember, the greatest season of all time was the 2004 Barry Bonds.) If he stays out a year, he can blame age for his breakdown in production. (I have no idea how long it takes to detox the body from steroids.) If Bonds didn't do steroids, and his production goes down this year, it will still look like he did steroids. The only way Bonds comes out ahead is if he tests repeatedly clean, the results are made public, and he has another monster year -- which with multiple knee surgeries in the off-season, seems unlikely. Bonds is damned if he does, damned if he doesn't, and whether or not he's taken the 'roids route, he may have figured this out and just decided to throw his hands up.

posted by The Crank 7:02 PM

Sunday, March 20, 2005

Roberto Alomar - Only One Way To Remember This Player

One of the most talented baseball players ever called it a career Saturday. There was no announcement of a final season. No farewell tour of all the great ballparks he played in over the last 17 seasons. Just an abrupt ending to what was mostly a stellar career. After a dismal performance in a spring game Friday, Alomar knew it was over. He signed with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays this past winter hoping to see enough playing time to add to a career hit total that was 276 hits short of 3000. He knew he would just be keeping the second base position warm until highly touted Jorge Cantu was ready to take over full time, but at this stage of Alomar's career and with not many options available to him, he accepted that role. He never made it to opening day.

Alomar retires as a 12 time all star and with 10 gold glove awards on his mantle. He won back to back World Series titles with the Toronto Blue Jays in 1992 and 1993 and leaves the game with an even .300 batting average, fitting for a player who was a model of consistency through most of his playing career.

Roberto Alomar was born into a baseball family. His father Sandy played 15 seasons in the big leagues and older brother Sandy Jr. is still active today. Alomar began his career in 1988 with San Diego and played three seasons with the Padres until a blockbuster trade brought him and Joe Carter to the Blue Jays in exchange for Fred McGriff and Tony Fernandez. After playing five seasons in Canada, Alomar moved on to play three seasons with the Baltimore Orioles and then three seasons with the Cleveland Indians. With Cleveland, fans were treated to an amazing double play combination as Alomar played alongside the amazing Omar Vizquel. Alomar enjoyed two of his most productive seasons in Cleveland when in 1999 he drove in 120 runs with a .323 batting average and in 2001 when he drove in 100 runs and batted .336.

After his all star season of 2001 the Indians began a youth movement and Alomar was traded to the New York Mets in a deal that at the time was considered a blockbuster. It was a trade that ended up not working out for either team. The Indians received what was supposed to be a prize prospect in Alex Escobar, and a veteran in Matt Lawton who had enjoyed some solid seasons in Minnesota which included a trip to the 2000 All Star Game. Escobar hurt himself in his very first spring with the Indians and missed the entire 2002 season and was never the player he was advertised to be. Lawton was quickly signed to a 4 year, 28 million dollar deal and performed miserably as an Indian for all but 3 months of the three seasons he was there. Escobar is now with the Washington Nationals and Lawton was traded to the Pittsburgh Pirates. After the deal Roberto Alomar's career started to decline, and quickly.

After one and a half less than productive seasons in Queens, Alomar was dealt to the White Sox in 2003 and finished out the season in an unsuccessful attempt of the Sox trying to win the AL Central. Alomar signed with the Arizona Diamondbacks for the 2004 season but broke his hand and spent two months on the disabled list. He ended up playing in only 38 games with the Diamondbacks and once again finished the season in Chicago, appearing in 18 games with the White Sox. Alomar hit .263 with 24 RBI's in the 56 games that he appeared in during the 2004 season.

The Devil Rays signed Alomar with hopes that he could revive his career and mentor Cantu. After all, who better to teach a young player how to play second base other than Roberto Alomar.

I remember being at Safeco Field in 2001 to watch the Cleveland Indians play the Seattle Mariners. My dad and I got to the game early. Watching Jim Thome hit bombs in to the bleachers was something to see, but watching Alomar take infield practice was the real treat of the day. My dad and I marveled watching Alomar take ground balls, catching them in his glove and then effortlessly flipping the ball over to the second base bag without ever transferring the ball to his throwing hand. We could have watched him do that for hours.

Many might choose to remember Alomar for the darkest day of his career when in a September game in 1996 Alomar spit on umpire John Hirschbeck. It was an incident that Alomar and Hirschbeck were able to get over but it was something that many fans have never forgotten.

Unfortunately some might only remember the last three seasons of Alomar's career where he bounced around from team to team as if he was a mediocre journeyman second baseman.

When one thinks of the best second basemen to ever grace the diamond, names like Rogers Hornsby, Eddie Collins, Nellie Fox, Bill Mazeroski, Joe Morgan and Ryne Sandberg come to mind. That list is not complete without Roberto Alomar's name on it.

We should all remember Robbie Alomar for what he truly is, one of the greatest to ever play the game.

posted by Dean Swanton 12:05 AM