The View From 312 Feet

Number Forty-Seven: Mike Lowell.

2010-01-02T00:01:00.002-05:00

The Sox never wanted Mike Lowell; in fact, every off season since he's been here, except for the one in which he signed his contract, they've tried to pawn him off on someone else. It's odd because he seems like a perfect fit for Fenway. But Mike seems to have handled it with mostly great aplomb.

He's also been extremely unlucky and somewhat of a trend setter when it comes to injuries; testicular cancer just before his twenty-fifth birthday, a left thumb injury and an arthritic hip in 2008, and a right thumb injury in 2009.

But the reason he makes the list is his 2007 World Series. In the sweep of Colorado he got six hits, including three doubles and a home run. He also walked three times. And he had a stolen base. Stop laughing, he did.

Plus, in addition to being smart and having a sense of humor, he is far and away the second most beautiful man in the American League.

Hockey.

2010-01-01T22:59:00.002-05:00

Baseball is my one and true love. But while I very much dislike football, I've never felt anything either way about hockey. And so I don't know who this is or what he does but I do know that he has serious eye black problems. Gordo explains the hat.

Doo-Dee-Doo-Dee-Doo-Dee-Doooo.

2010-01-01T19:51:00.002-05:00

(That was the Jeopardy! theme.)

This was a category on tonight's episode of Jeopardy! during the double jeopardy round. What is "Red Sox it to Me"?

$400 Question:

On April 20, 1912 the first game at this new venue went 11 innings & ended with a Red Sox win.

$800 Question:

With 44 homers, 121 RBIs, & a .326 average, Carl Yastrzemski is the last baseball player to win this.

$1200 Question:

Tim Wakefield has more starts than any pitcher in Red Sox history, mostly due to his success with this low-velocity pitch.

$1600 Question:

In 1918 he extended his streak of scoreless World Series innings pitched to 29.2 & tied for the most HRs in the league.

and $2000 Question:

In 2001 this Osaka-born pitcher tossed Boston's first no-hitter since 1965.

Number Forty-Eight: Dave Henderson.

2010-01-01T00:01:00.001-05:00

October 12, 1986. Game 5 of the ALCS, top of the ninth. The California Angels lead the series 3-1 and the game 5-4.

But it's not as bad as it was moments before: The inning started with the Sox down 2-5, facing Mike Witt (in 1986, Witt pitched fourteen complete games, was third in Cy Young voting, and beat Roger Clemens in game 1). Bill Buckner shot a single up the middle and was pinch run for by Dave Stapleton. Jim Rice struck out. One down. Don Baylor closed the gap slightly with a two-run home run to left. Score is 4-5. Dwight Evans popped out to third. Two down. In a seemingly puzzling move, Angels manager Gene Mauch decided to go to his bullpen and called for Gary Lucas to pitch to Rich Gedman, who was three for three in the game. Lucas hit Gedman and Donnie Moore is called upon to pitch to Dave Henderson.

Henderson sidles up to the plate with the tying run on base. He takes two pitches: one for a ball and one for a strike. He swings at the next pitch but misses. To borrow a phrase, the Sox are down to their last strike. He watches the fourth pitch go by for a ball. The count is 2-2. And then foul. And then another. And then a ball hit hard to left and the Sox are up 6-5.

After Ed Romero flies out to end the top of the inning, it turns out that the Angels aren't willing to give up quite so easily. In his third inning of relief, Bob Stanley gives up a single to the lead-off man, Bob Boone, and Gary Pettis moves him (well, the pinch runner Ruppert Jones) over with a sacrifice bunt. Bob Stanley's afternoon is done and he's replaced with Joe Sambito. Rob Wilfong gets one through on the right side and the score is tied when Jones tears around the bases. Steve Crawford is called upon to get them out of the mess. Crawford gives up a single to start the inning and Wilfong (as the Angels are wont to do, goes first to third.) Crawford intentionally walks Brian Downing to load the bases. Doug DeCinces hits the first pitch he sees for a fly ball to right but it's not deep enough. Two down. And then Bobby Grich hits one back to the pitcher and we're headed for extras.

The Sox make some noise in the top of the tenth: Wade Boggs walks but is forced out at second on a Marty Barrett groundout. Dave Stapleton hits a line drive to right and Barrett heads for third. But then Jim Rice grounds into an inning ending double play. Steve Crawford pitches the bottom of the tenth relatively well: A groundout, a strike out, a walk, and a fly out.

The top of the eleventh: Donnie Moore is still pitching for the Angels. Don Baylor is hit by a pitch. Dwight Evans shoots a single up the middle and Baylor takes second. Rich Gedman pushes a little dribbler down the third base line for a hit. The bases are now loaded with nobody out for the man of the hour, Dave Henderson. Henderson again puts the Sox on top when he a sacrifice fly to center. 7-6. Ed Romero flies out for the second out of the inning and Wade Boggs ends it with a ground out.

Calvin Schiraldi is brought out to finish the game. And he does so with a swinging strikeout, a swinging strikeout, and a foul ball caught off first base.

The Year That Was.

2009-12-31T14:23:00.002-05:00

I'm not sure why but I wasn't going to do an end of the year post. But then it occurred to me that I had this goofy little oddball musical theatre theme going for this season and there was a perfect song in RENT. [Aside: I know that there are a lot of RENT fans out there but the show has not aged well. It's odd because La Boheme hasn't suffered the same fate. It's probably because RENT set out to be super-edgy and now it's not--it's just super full of itself.] So how could I resist?

So Year in Review:

April: There were a couple of excellent games in April; Wakefield's near no-hitter (April 15) and subsequent eleven game winning streak, Jason Bay tying it up off Mariano Rivera in the ninth and Youkilis walking off with the win on April 24, Varitek's grand slam off AJ Burnett (April 25), and on April 27 at Cleveland the teams traded zeros for nine innings until Jason Bay hit a three-run home run off of Kerry Wood. But the winner for best game has to be Ellsbury's steal of home on April 26.

The worst game in April had to be the twelve inning disaster in Oakland on April 14. The game was almost four and a half hours long--not the best thing for a game that started at ten. Matsuzaka lasted only one inning, giving up five runs on five hits and two walks. The bullpen mostly held it together after that though. Happy went four innings, no runs; Manny Del went one and two-thirds, no runs; Ramon Ramirez went one and a third, no hits, no runs; Okajima went two innings, no hits, no runs; Papelbon went one inning, no hits, no runs; Javier Lopez struggled though--a walk, a ground out, a walk, a walk to load the bases, a strike out, and a single that brought in the tying run but was a really close play at first. The other choice would be Matt Garza's almost no-hitter (April 30). Featuring: Seven earned runs from Josh Beckett, five from Javier Lopez and his right-field debut, and two-thirds of an inning pitching from Jonathan Van Every.

May: The good: Not so much a great Red Sox moment as a Yankees Suck moment but on May 5, pugly Joba Chamberlain performed beautifully in relief of himself--he still got the loss after giving up four runs in the first inning and Beckett was able to hold them to a Damon three-run home run. And on Thursday May 7, the Red Sox scored 12 runs in the bottom of the sixth inning against Cleveland.

The bad: Papelbon blew a save against the Mets on May 23; he gave up a home run to Omir Santos that scrapped it's way over the wall. And on May 3, Carl Crawford stole six bases in one game.

The ugly: I would nominate May 28 in Minnesota. In the seventh inning, Jeff Bailey looks like he misses homeplate as he tries to score on a Dustin Pedroia sacrifice fly. Mike Redmond argues and is tossed. Ron Gardenhire argues and is tossed. In the next half inning, Josh Beckett says something to the umpire, Varitek jumps up to defend him and gets tossed. Terry Francona tries to defend Varitek and he gets tossed. Very strange.

June: On June 3, Josh Beckett had a no-hitter through seven and two-thirds. On June 4, the Sox continued to not swing at bad pitches as Dontrelle Willis fell apart before their eyes (he couldn't make it out of the third inning.) On June 6, Lester was perfect through six and one-third. On June 21, Nick Green hit a walk-off home run against the Braves.

The worst game of June would have to be June 30 at Baltimore. John Smoltz looked to be on his way to his first win; he went four innings and gave up only one run. Then the skies opened up. When the game resumed the bullpen coughed up a nine run lead and gave up ten runs in two innings.

July: Conversely, one of the best games on July was on July 1st. The Orioles had Bergesen going and the Sox came up with only one run in eight innings. But after he was pulled from the game in the ninth inning, the Oriole bullpen did their best Red Sox from the night before impersonation: Jim Johnson walked Pedroia and gave up a home run to Youkilis; George Sherrill got two strike outs (Jason Bay and David Ortiz), Ellsbury got a single, Bailey walked, Varitek walked to load the bases, Rocco Baldelli hit a single and tied the game, then Drew walked; Danys Baez got them out of the inning. To the top of the eleventh--Ellsbury hit a double, took third on a Baldelli fly ball, and scored the winning run on a Julio Lugo single.

In terms of bad days on July 30 the David Ortiz PEDs scandal broke; he did hit a three-run home run to win the game that day, though. That was a pretty bad day.

August: August brought Victor Martinez and that wasn't a bad thing. On August 14 in Texas, the Rangers had a four to two lead heading into the ninth inning and then all hell broke loose against Frank Francisco. David Ortiz doubled. Varitek singled, Ortiz went to third. Ellsbury singled, Varitek went to second, and Ortiz went home. Chris Woodward struck out. Clay Buchholz was put in to run for Varitek but, you see, he was thrown out at home trying to score on a double. From second base. Rally killer? You might think so but not with Victor Martinez in the lineup. Martinez hit a double; knocked himself on the helmet and knocked in two runs to put the Sox up by one. But they weren't done yet. Jason Bay singled and Martinez scored. Then JD Drew topped it off with a home run. Other games? Paul Byrd beat Roy Halladay on August 30.

I'd have to pick the fifteen inning affair at New York on August 7 as the bad game for August. Five and a half hours and fourteen innings of nothing before a two-run home run by Alex Rodriguez to end it.

September: September 16 against the Angels was possibly the game of the year. Paul Byrd pitched five and one-third of an inning and gave up three runs, when he was pulled the Sox were behind nothing to three. In the bottom of the sixth they pulled ahead 5-3. In the top of the seventh, Ramon Ramirez was pitching after Saito got the first out and then hit Vlad Guerrero with a pitch. Torii Hunter popped out. Two out. Kendry Morales struck out. Three out. Except, Varitek didn't catch the ball and Morales hustled down to first. Ramon may have been rattled. Kendrick singled, Guerrero scored. Rivera doubled, both Morales and Kendrick scored. Napoli doubled, Rivera scored. Okajima came in and got the fourth out by striking out Figgins. The damage at the end of the inning was that the Angels were once again leading, this time 7-5. The Sox didn't respond in the seventh and Oki/Manny Del were able to get through the eighth. Bottom of the eighth, Kevin Jepsen pitching. David Ortiz singles. JD Drew pinch hits for Brian Anderson and walks. Josh Reddick pinch hits for Jason Varitek and grounds into a force out, Ortiz takes third. Darren Oliver replaces Jepsen as the pitcher. A wild pitch to Casey Kotchman moves Reddick to second. Kotchman grounds out, Ortiz scores, and Reddick moves to third. Alex Gonzalez walks. Ellsbury singles and Reddick scores to tie the game. Pedroia flies out to end inning. Daniel Bard is brought in for the ninth inning. He got two outs (both ground outs) but then gave up three singles in a row to again put the Angels up by one. The Angels went to their closer, Brian Fuentes. Jason Bay popped out. One out. Mike Lowell flied out to deep center. Two outs. David Ortiz walked and was pinch run for by Joey Gathright. JD Drew singled and Gathright took second. Jed Lowrie singled to load the bases. Nick Green seemed to strike out twice (once swinging and once looking) but drew a walk and re-tied the game. And then Alex Gonzalez blooped one to left and the Red Sox won.

They didn't win the worst game of September but it wasn't a particularly badly played game. On September 25 in New York, Jon Lester took a line drive off the quadriceps muscle and as he lie on the ground rolling around in pain it didn't look good.

October: They played four games against Cleveland in October and won all of them so they were all pretty good. On October 1, though, Lester was perfect for five and one third of an inning in his first game back from being hit in New York.

As for a bad game, Clay Buchholz didn't look good in his last start on October 4. He went three innings and gave up six runs (including walking in a run).

And the play-offs aren't particularly worth talking about. The starting pitching wasn't all that bad but the bullpen and the lack of hitting was pathetic.

Hopefully, there are bigger and better things awaiting the Red Sox in 2010.

Number Forty-Nine: Ernie Shore.

2009-12-31T00:01:00.003-05:00

(From L-R: Ernie Shore, Babe Ruth, Carl Mays and Dutch Leo

Ernie Shore only pitched six full seasons in the big leagues and four of them were with Boston (1914-1917). In Boston he went 58-33 in 125 games. Dead ball era aside, he was a solid pitcher in a rotation that featured Smokey Joe Wood and Babe Ruth. But Ernie Shore's claim to fame is a single game in 1917.

On June 23, 1917 Babe Ruth started the first game of a double header at Fenway against the Washington Senators. Ruth walked the first batter of the game and then proceeded to get himself thrown out of the game for arguing with the umpire. Shore came in in relief, the runner got caught stealing, and Shore sat down the next twenty-six Senators he faced. In short, a nearly perfect game.

Optimism.

2009-12-30T15:47:00.003-05:00

A disturbingly hairless Kevin Youkilis was at the Lowell Spinners' Alumni Awards Dinner last night to receive the Dick Berardino Distinguished Alumni Award. Asked how the Red Sox will survive without the bat of Jason Bay in the lineup, Youk replied:

"We have a great team. Signing John Lackey is huge. If we don't allow as many runs, then we don't have to score as many runs. Mike Cameron is a good addition to the team, and this team has some guys who can improve on their numbers from last year. You never know: Someone who hit fifteen homers last year might hit twenty-five."

So there you go. Youkie says relax.

Fifty Days.

2009-12-30T00:01:00.005-05:00

There are fifty days until spring training. It may be frigid outside but there are only fifty days until pitchers and catchers. When you say it like that it doesn't seem so bad. (I may have to work harder on the John Lackey liking, though.)

So I came up with a task for myself for those fifty days. But unlike other assignments I've given myself for this space which I've either done half-heartedly or grown bored with and abandoned, I've come prepared. I have a list. It started off as a list of Fifty Reasons to Love the Red Sox but then morphed into something closer to Fifty Things to Know About the Red Sox. But there were things to know that were not reasons to love and so I suppose that it's best title at the moment would be Fifty Good Things About the Red Sox.

And so I present:

Number Fifty: Fred Lynn.

A graceful, athletic, fearless centerfielder--was there any doubt that he would make my list? It also doesn't hurt that the man could hit. He was Rookie of the Year and Most Valuable Player in 1975 but in his sixteen (and a piece) seasons in baseball he put up more good years than bad. Injuries and being traded out of Fenway to the California Angels hampered a potentially spectacular career. But men who leap into walls after a small leather ball will always have a little piece of my heart.

Choked Up.

2009-12-29T17:10:00.001-05:00

I'm not sure I could ever get enough of Billy Mueller knocking Mariano Rivera ass over tea kettle.

So Long and Thanks for All the Fish.

2009-12-29T14:35:00.004-05:00

Mike Francesa had it on his show (and Heyman confirmed) that Jason Bay is a physical shy of spending the next four years in Queens. Poor Jason. I'm glad he got his money but to have to play for the Mets is just tragic. I am glad that he didn't end up with the Yankees, though. That would have sucked.

Meanwhile, Josh Bard has signed a minor-league deal with Bay's supposed dream destination, the Seattle Mariners. With their catching situation the way it is (Johjima has gone back to Japan; Rob Johnson has had four surgeries this off-season, and has a below average bat and is, at best, an average defensive catcher; and baby catcher Adam Moore has a grand total of six major league games) maybe he gets a chance out there. Seattle is building an interesting team.

Go West.

2009-12-29T01:15:00.004-05:00

Jeff Bailey has decided to give up on beautiful Pawtucket and head for, at least, the high desert in Reno, NV signing a minor-league deal with the Arizona Diamondbacks. At least it's not Japan. And, hey! If Jeffy ends up making the major-league roster, then he'd be around in June when the Diamondbacks come to town. Absolute best of luck to him.

The Diamondbacks also signed Bob Howry. Bob's time in Boston was short--half of 2002 and four games in 2003--and it wasn't particularly good. To be fair he did have an elbow problem in 2003 and he bounced right back in 2004 with Cleveland. But I guess good luck to him too.

Cold Winter Fun.

2009-12-28T19:57:00.002-05:00

A bit of information that may only be of interest to myself:

Former best beloved Craig Breslow [Aside: He really needn't worry about me stalking him. Honestly. I'm not the stalking type--well, except for that weatherman but that was quite awhile ago.] is scheduled to appear at the World Baseball Coaches' Convention at the Mohegan Sun, January 21-23. He doesn't actually appear on the schedule of events, though.

And to make it more relevant to anyone else: Strength and conditioning coach, Dave Page will be giving a talk entitled "The Facts About Baseball Fitness Training: Getting Your Player Ready for the Season" on January 22.

S-M-R-T.

2009-12-26T13:52:00.002-05:00

List season. It starts with Christmas lists. Then there are shopping lists. And lastly, top ten lists; top ten people, top ten news stories, top ten sports stories, top ten status updates on Facebook. This year, list makers--generally, journalists with nothing real to write about--get the added bonus of making Top Ten ________ of the Decade. It fell to one writer (Karen Hawthorne of Canada's National Post) to compile a list of the Top Ten Smartest People of the Decade. I don't necessarily agree with most of her choices (But, truthfully, I didn't really read it. I only looked at the pictures.) coming in as the tenth smartest person of the decade was Theo Epstein. So there's that.

Ninety.

2009-12-26T00:03:00.002-05:00

"Wake up the damn Bambino. Have him face me. Maybe I'll drill him in the ass." --Pedro Martinez

My mother's uncle was a war photographer during World War II. At the beginning of the war he was stationed in England but by 1944 he had been transferred to Hawaii. I have no idea how it happened (short of my great uncle and my grandmother being a pair of spies--they were from the German part of Poland, after all) but somehow my grandmother ended up with copies of a lot of photographs that her brother took. There are eight books filled with photographs and a cigar box with overflow pictures. Going back to the spy thing, my mother never knew any of those pictures existed. They were stored in my grandmother's closet and only when she died did they come to light.

The pictures from England are hard to look at. They show a lot of rubble and charred buildings. But the photos from Hawaii are less emotional. They show lots of guns and cannon and airplanes and battleships and cannon going off and barracks and military parades. There are some pictures of scenery but they mostly seemed to be taken to experiment with colorization.

So you're flipping through these books and the pages are crumbling under your fingers. There are pages and pages and pages of guns. And then suddenly, without any sort of context around it, staring grumpily out at you from the facing page is Babe Ruth. It's very shocking the first time you see the picture. He's so instantly recognizable and so out of place that it prompts a response of "Wait! Is that..?" from everyone.

It would be interesting to know how my great uncle felt about taking that picture. On one hand, it's Babe Ruth but on the other ninety years ago today Ruth was sold to the Yankees. I assume that Ruth was in Hawaii as a morale booster/USO type thing. And since there are no other photographs in any of the other books of even a remotely similar nature, I think that it's safe to assume that the mystique of Babe Ruth overtook any sense of bitterness or resentment or cursed-ness that my mother's uncle might have felt.

But whether the Curse of the Bambino was a figment of Dan Shaughnessy's imagination or an actual sentiment that existed before he put a title to it, it deserves to be acknowledged--if only because it became such a large part of our collective conscience. Who doesn't know "No, No, Nannette"? And while this is almost certainly a severe case of hindsight, maybe it wasn't such a bad thing. 2007 was great but it was no 2004. 2004 was an amazing ride. Mind you, 2003 sucked.

A Second Career.

2009-12-25T02:02:00.002-05:00

After 2007, Matt Clement went to St. Louis but he wasn't able to make a start for them. Last year he tried out for Toronto but when he didn't make the team out of spring training, he decided to call it quits. And so what's a guy to do when he's thirty-five, has already made a considerable amount of money, and suddenly has a lot of free time on his hands? Matt Clement is filling his days coaching basketball at his old high school. I won't make any snarky comments about Clement or contemplate his psyche. I will say that he is a very fortunate individual and good for him for finding something he likes to do.

Merry Christmas.

2009-12-25T00:01:00.003-05:00

Perhaps I'm not a very good host but I do appreciate the people who willing partake of my oddness. Thank you and just a very merry (but safe) Christmas (Hanukkah/Winter Solstice) to anyone who should happen by.

Also, happy birthday Okie!

The Baby and the Bath Water.

2009-12-24T12:37:00.003-05:00

Don Orsillo's mailbag. What can I say? The man watches a lot of baseball and he probably knows this team as well as anybody. Like most people, he sometimes has interesting things to say and he sometimes has bone-headed things to say. Like today's answer about Ellsbury's defense:

"I am not a fan of this method of evaluating a player. I realize agents and some scouting departments are searching for ways to quantify a player's defense; I just don’t think it tells you enough of the story. I am guessing most baseball people agree, based on how people view your two great examples, Ellsbury and Jeter. I think a scout's eye can more accurately determine whether a player is a good defender and can cover ground. Again, this is a way to quantify an area that, with the exception of fielding percentage, has been tough to quantify. Still not a fan though."

Oh, Donny O. Fielding percentage? Really? Come out of the dark ages. How many times have you and Jerry sat there and disagreed with the official scorers call on whether something was an error or not? How then can you rely on a statistic that has errors as an integral part of it's formula?

Look, I agree with you that Ellsbury was treated unfairly by UZR this season. And I agree that you should rely on what you can see. What I've seen is Jacoby making plays much more difficult than they need to be. How many times have you called something to the effect of: "Jacoby started in and now he's headed back to leap and make the play." or "Jacoby started back and now he's headed in but he has the speed to make up for it." And that's all I'll say about that because it's all been said before.

Also, I'm not sure what it says about me but in the photo included with the mailbag, I recognized the dugout at Angels Stadium (at least, I hope it's Angels Stadium after I called Don Orsillo's opinions bone-headed) before I recognized Varitek.

Tacoma Bound.

2009-12-24T06:51:00.003-05:00

David Pauley has moved on from the Orioles and signed a minor league deal with Seattle. I always liked Pauley. They're building quite a team out there in Seattle and if he should get a chance to break through out there, that would be great. And here's hoping his little girl is doing well.

From the Halls of Montezuma.

2009-12-23T18:03:00.003-05:00

to trying to get a thirty-six year-old-man to get on a bus in Los Angeles.

Edes has a piece about Terry Francona's son, Nick, who graduated from Quantico last summer as a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps and is likely to be deployed to Afghanistan soon enough. I don't do politics here but the best of luck to him.

The reason to bring it up is Nick's quote about the difference between managing a baseball team and managing a Marine platoon:

"There's a difference, though, between $10 million ballplayers and Marines making $10,000 a year, they don't have Manny Ramirezes in the Marine Corps. They just don't exist. In baseball, you can't just tell them what to do. In the Marine Corps, you say jump, they say, 'How high?"'

Do you think Francona did some complaining about his job over the breakfast table?

Also, the picture is fabulous.

MVP.

2009-12-23T15:50:00.003-05:00

Choosing an MVP for the 2009 Boston Red Sox was probably a fairly easy decision for the Boston chapter of the Baseball Writers Association of America. This wasn't a club that had an easy go of it from April to October; there were plenty of injuries to and disappointing starts for players who were being counted on for big things. I suppose a case could have been made for Jason Bay but he seemed to lead the team-wide slump in early August. And so they selected Kevin Youkilis for the Thomas A. Yawkey Memorial Award. Congratulations to him.

Tip of the Cap.

2009-12-23T11:49:00.003-05:00

Jason Bay was awarded the Tip O'Neill Award by the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame. The award is given to the best Canadian playing the game of baseball. It's Bay's third go-round, as he won in 2004 and 2005. So congratulations to him.

A Well Kept Secret.

2009-12-23T09:40:00.003-05:00

I had heard awhile ago that Manny Delcarmen's wife might be pregnant but since it seemed to be only a one-off rumor I dismissed it. Turns out, my teller-of-tales was right. Last month she gave birth to a little girl whom they are calling Miley. (Forgive me for linking the Inside Track.) I am being non-judgmental about her name. Congratulations to the family. Given how adorable the son is, it probably won't be too long until the girl is breaking hearts.

It's a Small World.

2009-12-22T20:25:00.003-05:00

With two little kids a vacation to Disney World makes a lot of sense for Daisuke Matsuzaka. What doesn't make a lot of sense? The truly awful jacket he chose to wear.

Trading Barbs.

2009-12-21T21:09:00.002-05:00

Mike Lowell and Rob Bradford are total BFFs. So, it would make sense that when Lowell decided to make his side of the "Great Thumb Controversy" known he went right to Bradford. Sounding slightly bitter, defensive and like he's giving a deposition, Mikey says:

“I was in constant contact with the training staff and I told them at the two-week (mark) I didn’t feel a difference with my thumb and at the four-week mark it was the same thing and then at the seven-week mark Mike Reinold flew down to Miami to check it out and that’s when they decided to put me in the splint and keep it immobilized for a month. That’s when the thinking was that it might be something more than it was originally thought to be. The first day of the winter meetings was when I was ordered to get an MRI."

I don't really understand what the point of this was as I'm sure it doesn't help things with the front office if they do end up stuck with each other. Mike certainly doesn't seem too happy with them.

Of Cabbages and Kings.

2009-12-21T19:17:00.003-05:00

Word is Covelli is a physical shy of signing to play, presumably, center field for Oakland next season. While it's a move that keeps Coco, at least, a little closer to home, it's not a move that really seems to make much sense for the Athletics. They already have Rajai Davis and Ryan Sweeney who are very similar to Coco in that they're defensive assets and about average with the bat. And they also have Scott Hairston who was only acquired half way through last season. And they just got prospect Michael Taylor from Toronto (after Toronto received him in the Halladay trade.) Admittedly, Taylor needs more time in triple AAA but it's a crowded outfield. They might consider platooning Hairston and Davis but one of them might just as likely be available for a trade.

Also, might Pedro be thinking about a return to Queens? Given the way things seem to be going for Minaya this off season, I wouldn't put it past him.

Also, the Padres who were looking to trade for a catcher (which might have made some sense of the Max Ramirez for Mike Lowell trade) have filled that need by trading for the Tiger's Dusty Ryan.

And this is what happens when there is anything interesting to write about.