I was listening to Philscast and heard about Cot's Baseball Contracts. It is a site that has contract info for all the teams in Major League Baseball. It is pretty cool to see what is in the contracts. Who get paid what. It is sad that Bengie Molina, arguably the Giants best position player, makes less money than Dave Roberts who only has 17 at bats so far this year.
It seems that no one is willing to sign Barry Bonds and the Union is pissed. Well at least Jeff Borris is pissed. According to the new reports Barry Bonds has not received a signal offer. I am not sure if this is because Jeff Borris answers the phone, "if you not offering $10 million dollars a year, don't bother talking." Honestly, I think it is because Barry Bonds is indited without a court date yet. If general mangers knew that he was not going to have court dates during the September stretch run they might be willing to sign him.
The other problem is that only 14 teams might be willing to sign him. I would not play him in left field any more. that only leads American League teams. He could be a DH, but I am not sure a DH would be worth the risk that he might get hurt. I doubt he is willing to play for a discount. In the end, I do not think there is any collusion. Everyone has come to the conclusion that Barry Bonds is not worth signing.
If I was Peter Magowan, I could come clean to the public. Right now you have a chance to be forgiving for all your past steroid sins. You have a window to say the who game was rotten and you did not do the right thing. No one will blame you. You were just trying to keep up with the rest of the teams and keep your business healthy. You need to act now. In the future people might not be as forgiving.
I worked from home today so I got the chance to watch Roger Clemens in front of Congress. After watching that, Roger Clemens comes off as someone even less credible. He did not seem like someone who cannot admit what he has done. If felt like your ego was keeping you from the truth. He seems like he does not want to lose his reputation. After watching all that, Brian McNamee might be a lier, but I trust him more than I trust Roger Clemens. This might have hurt your bid to get into the Hall Of Fame more than anything else.
What got me is when he talked about performance enhancing drugs and what he tells kids. He said that there is no shortcuts. The only want to succeed is hard work. To me this is a sign he totally does not understand why people take performance enhancing drugs. I have known people to "juice" as we called it back in the day. They did not do it so they could skip workouts. They did not do it because they wanted to sleep in and not work hard. The did it because they wanted to be better and were willing to do whatever it took to be better. They wanted to cross that gap between what they could do on their own and what they could do with help.
I have no doubt that Roger Clemens did not need performance enhancing drugs to get into the major leagues. No matter what he says, it was not only hard work that got him to the show. After today I realize that he was going to do whatever it took to keep being on the the best pitchers ever. I do not think performance enhancing drugs were a short cut for Roger Clemens. Lesser players could have taken them and got less results. I have no doubt that Roger Clemens always worked hard. Taking performance enhancing drugs was still cheating.
What gets me is that Roger Clemens could have blamed Major League Baseball. He could have blamed the owners for not testing. He could have blamed them for making taking performance enhancing drugs competitive necessary. I wonder if his ego got in the way.
I have been thinking about Baseball, The Mitchell Report, Barry Bonds, and Roger Clemens. All I can say is lets retire the phrase "Greatest of All Time."
I have been one of the fans that really got down on the steroids era. I see everyone that did steroids as cheating. Even if baseball was not testing for steroids, they were against the rules since 1991.
They are cheaters, but they do not own the fault, not even most of the fault. The League, the office of the commissioner, and the union all have more fault that the individual players. They did not protect the players. In fact they went the other direction and enabled and encouraged this behavior.
I also blame the media. I am not sure why reporters did not dig into this earlier. The word was going around the clubhouse. No one was on the record, but a good reporter could have found some of the truth. It is like the news media thought it was better to keep the clubhouse code of silence.
I do not have a footnote for this story, I remember when Lenny Dykstra, came back from his plagued seasons of 1991 and 1992. In a clubhouse interview he made a comment about eating his vitamins as a joke. Everyone who heard that that clip knew that Dykstra was talking about steroids. Since there was no testing at that time no one did anything. Gary Cobb did a whole show on WIP in Philadelphia about steroids. I wonder why no one covering baseball full time picked up on this.
In light of how many players took steroids, it is truly a whole generation of players who took part of this. The report was full of All Star players. It was at the heart of the game. I am starting to soften on the idea that these players do not deserve to be in the Hall of Fame. I have gone from no not any them to kind of no.
What I would ask of the media and of sports fans, lets retire the title of "Greatest of All Time." I am not saying that we cannot call a player great or amazing. Lets just not crown them the Greatest of all time in any category. Not the greatest hitter, the greatest pitcher, and not the greatest player. I do not care how many stats they rack up, how any MVPs or Cy Young awards they win. No longer can a new player or a player in the game right now be the greatest of all time.
I am not sure what Tim Kurchin is going to do on baseball tonight if he can no longer say a player is the greatest of all time. He might not know what do with himself, but he will find another way to say a player is great.
From here on out I think Willie Mays is the greatest player of all time. He was the best player in the best era of baseball. Lets leave it at that.
Baseball season feels so far away. I want to go to baseball games. I want to be able to take people to baseball games. I know that baseball season will get here, I just do not want to wait. I guess I will have to wait.
The gate is closed on baseball season once again. It is going to be hard to wait for next season. Kate is a baseball fan. I want to take her to games. I guess all I have to do is wait.
Barry Bonds his home 757 last night. Quick notes to all you sports journalist and sports broadcasters out there. Barry Bonds cannot brake his own career record. He can only add to his own record. An athlete can brake a single season or single game record they hold. They would need to start their career all over again to break their own career record. I hope I do not hear that he broke his own record with every home run. If I do I will need to start schooling people.
Last night Barry Bonds hit his career 756 home run. This makes him the all time career major league home run record. I think the all time professional record is Sadaharu Oh with 868 home runs in the Nippon Professional Baseball League. (In high school I had a history teacher who would use this as a trick extra credit question.)
The record is his. It is record that will stay his no matter what anyone thinks about his alleged use of steroids, the book Game of Shadows, the Balco Scandal, Victor Conte, or Greg Anderson. No one will take the record away from him. It will have to be beaten on the field. Even with evidence of steroid use that is spelled out in Game of Shadows. The record will belong to Barry Bonds and there will be no asterisk.
This has to be laid at the feet of Major League Baseball, The Major League Baseball Players Association (The players union), and sportswriters. Blind eyes were turned all around. There were whispers about steroid use back in the early 90s. I remember whispers about Lenny Dystra using steroids after he came back from the 1991 car accident with Darren Dalton. People on the radio where talking about it, but no one thought it was worth investigating.
Most of that blame has to go to Major League Baseball. They did not want to do anything to upset the cart. Even if everything going on was not above board, it was important for them to keep labor peace. It did not matter what happened to the game. It did not matter what players were doing to there bodies. It does not matter that Ken Caminiti admitted to Sport Illustrated that he used steroids to win his 1996 NL MVP. That did not get baseball to snap into action. There is a chance if Baseball acted sooner that it might not have ever come to a day where the holder of the home run record has a cloud over his head.
With the truth of the world what it is, I will not write that Barry Bonds does not deserve the record. I will not say that he deserves an asterisk. I will not grit my teeth when people call him the Home Run King. You can say that Barry Bonds is the greatest home run hitter of this era, the greatest player of this era, or even the greatest hitter of this era.
There are some things that I do not want to hear from sports writers, sports talk show hosts, or sports fans.
1. "Barry Bonds is the greatest hitter, home run hitter, or player of all time." The current era has made this a meaningless statement. How can I measure the greatness of a man how did not have modern chemistry helping him v. a man how did what he needed to do to compete with other home run hitters? Barry Bonds and Willie Mays are almost apples and oranges at this point.
Every time I hear this I feel that history gets a little cheaper. I did not get to see Willie Mays or Hank Aaron play, but I respect what they meant to the game. I got to see Reggie Jackson and Mike Schmidt play in the dead ball era of the 80's. I feel discounting these players disrespects the game. Just call Barry Bonds the Best hitter of his era.
2. There is no drug that can help you hit. There is no drug that could help me hit. No drug would have made me good enough at baseball to get in into the minor leagues. Performance enhancing drugs work without question. The history of sport can show us that. The idea that only weight lifters and offensive linemen benefit from steroids is outdated. Just drop that. One of the key elements of hitting is bat speed. Steroids and Human Growth Hormone can both help with that. The line between Barry Bonds being a first ballet Hall of Famer and the best home run hitter is not that large. Performance enhancing drugs.
3. Fans don't care about steroids. I am tired of hearing this. I might not be so hurt by steroid use that I walk away from the game. I love baseball, but right now I feel like a sap. I feel like I have been taken advantage of by a friend I really love. I am willing to give baseball some slack for now, but I am sad about what I am seeing. I know I am not alone. Every baseball fan might not feel this way, but I know enough do.
In the end, who knows where baseball is going. I would love to think that the young heroes of the game like Ryan Howard and Prince Fielder are clean, but I don't know. I do not know if the next person to break the Home Run record will be clean. We will have to see what the game looks like in 10 years.
The Phillies did it. They lost their 10,000 game all time. It only took a 124 years to get here. That is 124 in one city. The Giants have over 10,000 wins, but that is split between San Francisco and New York. The Phillies have all their losses as a Philadelphia team.
What does 10,000 loses mean. It means the Phillies have been around for a long time. It means there have been a lot of broken dreams. It means that the city has stuck by the team all that time. It means good years and bad, fans have found a reason to believe. Fans keep on finding a reason to come back to the Phillies
The Phillies only have 8811 wins all time. For they Phillies to get back to .500 all time they would have to go on a winning streak until September 2014. If the team has 100 win seasons, 100 wins being the gold standard for good baseball times, until the team reached .500 it would take almost 30 years. It will be a few years before any other team gets 10,000.
The number 10,000 is a number the fans can be proud about. The only people I know who have a link to all 10,000 loses are people who have grandsons of fans.
Ed Deal, a Phillies game-day employee, said it best: “The Phillies are my grandfather’s team, my father’s team, my team, my sons’ team and my grandchildren’s team.”
That, my friends, is Phillies baseball.
I think that Phillies fans should celebrate 10,000. If I was in Philadelphia I would have tried to be at the game.
I left Philadelphia. I left the area I grew up in. Part of my heart are still back there. It would be easy for some to latch onto another team. Not me, the Phillies are my team, 10,000 losses or not.
There is a current race in Major League Baseball Records. Will the Barry Bonds get to 756 home runs to break Hank Aaron's career mark before the Phillies get to 10000 losses. Right now Barry Bonds has 748 home runs and the Phillies have 9990 losses. This is the most in the history of professional team sports.
I am hoping that the Phillies get to 10000 losses first. I have been asked by some people how could I celebrate this? How can I celebrate being a fan of a team with so many losses? Sports are about winning. How can I be happy about how many time the Phillies have loss?
In the end, this is a very Philadelphia thing. Bad things don't happen because sports teams lose games. The crime rate in Philadelphia would not be any lower if the Phillies only had 8300 loses. The city would not be any nicer if the Phillies was 28 World Series. The schools would not be better if the Phillies had won 13 divisions in a row. In the end baseball is still a game. I love baseball, but it is not curing cancer.
The A's, who are currently in Oakland and still better than the Phillies, where the good Philadelphia team for the first half of the 20th century. They were the team that won 9 Pennants and 5 world series while the Phillies where dwelling the the cellar and racking up more 100 loss seasons (13) that willing seasons (11). Yet is was still the A's that pulled out of Philadelphia for a city of their own.
I do wonder if I and Philadelphia would have been different if the Phillies left and the A's would have stayed in Philadelphia. I wonder if I would have been an American league fan. I wonder what it would have been like for the Philadelphia team to be beaten by the Yankees all the time. I know this is an impossible question, but I think things would have been different.
I know some Phillies fans who are proud of 10,000 losses. It is not that we are proud that our team are losers. We are proud that the Phillies are still our team. We did not have to seal them from another city and they never left us. They have always been a Philadelphia team. Bad season after bad season we have been willing to come out and see them play. We cheer for the good times and boo for the bad times.
As a Phillies fan the team has broken my heart more times than I can count. In 1993 I sat in my car and cried when Mitch Williams gave up that home run to Joe Carter. But that 1993 season was the most fun I ever had as a baseball fan. If the Phillies won all the time, that season would not have been as fun. Every coach in the world will say that you learn more from losing that from winning. I think that is the reason that some people what to celebrate 10,000 losses.
In the end the Phillies are Philadelphia. We love the team 10,000 losses and much fewer wins, the same way we love the city. Philadelphia is not New York, Los Angeles, or San Francisco, but it would not want to be any of those places. There is something about the Phillies and their 10,000 losses that fits well into the history of the city they call home.
There is nothing like watching a little baseball as the days get longer. even if I am just watching on TV. There is something about baseball that usually puts me in a better mood. That is as long as the Phillies are not finding a dumb way to lose.
Speaking of the Phillies losing, They are only 15 losses away from 10,000. That will give them the most losses in the history of pro sports. It has only taken the Phillies 124 years to reach that mark. There are older teams and worse teams, but no older worse teams.
Even a good baseball teams lose 60-70 games. That is more than the below average basketball or hockey team loses. The Phillies had 50 years of being the worst team in baseball. Think about how long they were bad. I think that has something to do with why I am a fan.
Sixty years ago today Jackie Robinson played his first game in the major leagues, breaking the color barrier. Today Major League Baseball had Jackie Robinson day. I watched the game between the Dodgers and the Padres. They was the headliner of the games today. They had Jackie Robinson's widow, Hank Aaron, and Frank Robinson there. ESPN had them all on the air.
I cannot state all the good things that Jackie Robinson did by breaking the color barrier in baseball. He did it in a way that no one was going to tear him down. He did it in a way that he knew he was going to succeed. In a way that no one could criticize him or the idea of breaking the barrier.
To me one important thing that happened is that it became alright for white kids to like black players. I do not think you can under-estimate how important that is to bridge race relationship.
Baseball is only a few weeks away. I always look forward to baseball. Baseball is my favorite sport. I enjoy being able to check the scores everyday to see what is happening. I enjoy watching baseball tonight and sports center. I enjoy those games where it feels like nothing is happening, but you cannot turn away.
I was surprised how much of a baseball town San Francisco is. Most people would expect it to be a Football town with the 49ers and the Raiders. Sports fans seem to get more excited about the Giants and the A's. It might be because the 49ers will never be as great as they were in the 80s ever again. It is not their fault, no team will be that great again.
Maybe it is the transport nature of the area. Baseball fans from all over seem to get along better than football fans from all over the place. I will go to a Giants or A's game to see anyone play. For football I would rather stay home and watch the Eagles than go to a 49ers game.
Baseball season will be here before I know it. That is a good feeling about time flying.
June 18, 2005 Philadelphia Phillies v. Oakland A's
My thoughts and prayers go out to his family and friends. This is just more proof that everyday is a gift. No matter how much you have, it can always go away.
I started my vacation before I was planning to leave town. When I originally set up my vacation I was going to use friday to surprise my girlfriend with dinner before I left town. Since I do not have to worry about having a girlfriend currently, I was on my own for the first day of my vacation.
My team is in town. The Phillies are here to play the Giants. I was worried that I was going to miss them because they were coming to town at the same time as my vacation. I ended up being in town even after my vacation started.
I was going to go into San Francisco early and take some pictures. I had the day off, I might as well get some use out of it. Because of a late start and poorly used time my day of photography turned into just a trip to Amoeba records and a little drive around the city. I am great at wasting time.
I got to the game early, but I could not get into the stadium. There was a mix up and the ticket I had was no good. I had to wait for Antwon and Ealasaid to get there. The mixup come out in my favor because I got a seat 10 rows behind home plate. I did not get my usual pre-game photos. I got to my set right before the first pitch.
The game was pretty good, except for the Phillies melting down for one inning. That is all it took for them to lose. The Phillies have lost most of the games I have seen them play in San Francisco.
After the game I went to the Valley Schwag party. It was an okay party. It was too hot, too crowded, and too many guys. The women were cute, but the odds were 4:1. Those are not good odds for me.
Talking about how bad the Phillies have been, I found the website Countdown to 10000. We are counting down to the Phillies 10000 lost. The Phillies have lost more games than any other team in the history of Pro-sports. Not just the US history but the world history. There is a little part of me that is proud of this. My team truly is the worst at something. That is not an easy thing. I am not sure any team will be able to catch them in my life time.
The Washington Generals might have more, but it is hard to count the team playing the Globetrotters since they are not playing in a league. I would count all those games as exhibitions. If we counted them we would have to count all the spring training loses the Phillies would already be there.
I found this list of the Worst Baseball Teams of All time. I am happy to see that there are no Phillies teams on this list. I am unhappy to see that all of the Honorable Mention teams are Phillies teams.
Thinking about it for a few minutes, this might be worse. These Phillies teams were bad enough to stink, but not bad enough to be the worst. I always think that third place is the worst place for a baseball team. Good enough to tease you all season long, not good enough to really be in the pennant race.
This makes me think I need to dust off my old "My Least Favorite Phillies of All-Time" team. I have worked on it before, but I have never posted it on my blog.
The other day Russ Springer hit Barry Bonds after throwing at him three times. Springer got ejected from the game and a standing ovation from the Houston fans.
I stand behind Russ Springer as a life long reliever. Barry Bonds has knocked a lot of relievers out of games. I would be ticked off if I was a pitcher like Russ Springer. Barry Bonds did not only make himself look good, he also made pitchers look bad. You cannot cheat without cheating off someone else.
I am not usually for pitchers throwing at batters. If a batter hits a home run off you, you should have thrown a better pitch. If that guy hit a home run off you because he was cheating he might deserve to get hit.
It is a bad time for Barry Bonds. He has yet to hit a home run this season. Some people predicted that he would pass Babe Ruth already. He is still 6 behind on the all-time home run chart. On ESPN News earlier today that his elbow might be the problem causing his .167 batting average this season.
On top of that he is being investigated by federal prosecutors. I am not sure if this is causing him a problem on the field. Different players react different ways with off the field issues. Some of issues cause people to focus even more. I know that things are starting to pile up for him.
"It was not immediately clear whether the January 2006 testimony was before the same grand jury now cited in the CNN story. But in any case, Bell has stated that she saw Bonds inject himself with steroids and apply creams that she knew to be steroid-related. Bell has also stated that Bonds gave her $80,000 in cash to buy a house and that he gave her specific instructions to deposit the money in amounts of less than $10,000.
Federal law requires banks to report transactions of $10,000 or more, and the question is whether Bell's financial testimony, perhaps conveyed to one or more grand juries, could also expose Bonds to charges of tax evasion, money laundering and evasion of federal banking laws."
I have such a hard time feeling sorry for Barry Bonds. Reading all these stories I feel that thought he could get away with whatever he wanted. If you lie to a federal grand jury when you have limited immunity, you get what you deserve.
No matter what happens Barry will be tainted for the rest of his life. His stats will be in doubt. Some people will always see him as a cheater. I wonder if this is something that he culture of sports likes. It gives people something to debate at the sports bar.
In the end I think it is tragic for baseball and Barry. Maybe Barry Bonds is a tragic hero of a Greek drama. All the elements are there. In the end his hubris might be his undoing.
I have already taken my baseball roadtrip for this year. Back in May I saw games in San Diego and Phoenix. I got to see the Phillies in both cities. At least the Phillies won one of those games. It was one of the highlights of my trip.
Many people know that baseball is my favorite sport. I love taking these little trips every year. There is almost a pilgrimage factor to baseball. I cannot think of any other sport were people talk about how many stadiums they have been to. They do not talk about the stadiums they want to see. I think there is something about baseball parks.
I have to think about what parks I want to see next year. By then the new park in Philadelphia will be done. That would be a trip worth taking. I wonder if I will get a chance to get back home next season.
Veterans Stadium (Philadelphia) Comiskey Park II (Chicago) Skydome (Toronto) Tiger Stadium (Detroit) Fenway Park (Boston) Camden Yards (Baltimore) Kingdome (Seattle) Oakland Coliseum Pacific Bell Park (San Francisco) Edison International (Anaheim) Quacom Stadium (Old Jack Murphy San Diego) Bank One Ballpark (Arizona)
Baseball Teams Seen
Phillies Pirates Cubs Braves Mets Cardinals Expos Giants Dodgers Padres Reds Astros Brewers Rockies Diamond Backs White Sox Tigers Blue Jays Yankees Red Sox A's Mariners Rangers Indians Angels Twins
Steve Carlton is one of my favorite pitchers of all times. I know that he has the reputation of being a disagreeable human being. As a player he hated the media. After his playing days he said some dumb things to the media. He has tried to rehabilitate himself in the mean time. That has been almost painful. He has no edge at all anymore. I have to give him a little leeway. Pitchers are a strange breed, left handers more so. A sportswriter once penned "hell is an island where everyone else is a goalie, a place kicker, or a left handed pitcher."
I just seen Carlton as a pitchers on the mound. He was the kind of pitcher that did not care who the hitter was, he was going to blow it by him. I watched him pitch some great games. I was between 6 and 12 when I watched him pitch on the Phillies. He was a great pitchers to watch when the game was all that mattered.
Carlton explains how he threw his slider. There used to be a joke about Carlton's Slider. Larry Christenson, another Phillies pitcher at the time asked Carlton how he got so much movement on his slider. Carlton said, "Put your finger along the seam and throw the shit out of the ball." Christenson sighed and commented that if he had Carlton's arm strength he would not worry at all about where to grip it.
People might know that I am a huge baseball fan. I am known as an intellectual baseball fan. I enjoy looking over the finer parts of the sport. Pitching is something that everyone talks about, but very few people can explain. Here is a little information about how and why breaking pitches break. The next time someone asks if a curve ball really curves or not, tell them it only matters if you can hit the curve ball.
