In the first three instalments of this series, we've seen Mark Portugal enjoying himself a nice cuban cigar - er - lollipop, Omar Olivares bunt without using his hands, and Jose Melendez attempt to replace himself on the mound with a child. Upper Deck 1993 seems to be a never ending source of pitchers not throwing a damned thing.
Today, I thought it would be good to look at some of the feelings and emotions that a pitcher can experience during the ebbs and flows of a game. While not pitching.
Thoughts on a two game series where I cheered for both teams
For someone who posts a lot about baseball and lives within walking distance to the SkyDome, it's taken me quite some time to get to a baseball game this season. So I says nuts to that. And nuts to just one game, let's go for two. Makes sense, what with my other favorite team in town for a two-game set.
Yes, I'm one of those Toronto Giants fans, and I can't pinpoint how or why. Maybe it's because after their 2010 World Series win, The Franchise came out and gave a group of athletes a human side not normally seen, and that struck a chord with me. Maybe it's their packaging as a 'quirky group of characters' that brings out the offbeat sports fan in me. Maybe it's just because they've got nice uniforms and San Francisco has that hipster cache I yearn for. I don't know, fandom's gotta start somewhere, and who cares if it's on the back of a bandwagon.
Much ado was made about Melky Cabrera facing his former team, and I'm not going to make any more ado about it, except that he reached base five times on four hits, one error and two bad legs. Good for him.
I didn't know what to expect from either pitcher going into this game, especially Barry Zito. Watching him in pre-game, doing long toss from center field to his catcher on the right field foul line, going further and further into left field territory, was pretty impressive. Watching the Blue Jays send 11 batters to the plate in the first inning was even better. Their win expectancy dropped below 90% only a few times after the first inning.
Things slowed down after that first inning, which gave me time to take in the little things about the ballpark I've been missing. The people, the sounds, the smell of the hot dorgs, all that good stuff. The couple in front of us were... interesting. The man, clad in a knit Blue Jays sweater, was keeping score in a scorebook that could accomodate 17 position players, but only 9 innings. Get that man an Eephus League scorebook, stat. His wife seemed less interested in the game (although she danced in her seat to the walk-up music), but more interested in writing thank-you cards to people who had participated in a staging of South Pacific I KID YOU NOT. One of the cards read "Um... who were you again?" So personal. I hope she was the director. They both wore headphones, and he chided her every time Brett Lawrie came to bat. They were awesome.
My wife excused herself momentarily and I was visited by three ghosts. I mean, a pigeon. This pigeon:
Visitor at the Skydome. Yeah, the picture's not pretty, but neither are pigeons.
So I don't take good pictures of pigeons. Sue me.
The Blue Jays were well on their way to winning 10-3, and with two outs in the 9th, I wanted to take some video of Brad Lincoln getting the final out. Instead, I got this:
Walk to Andres Torres, broken bat single to Marco Scutaro, and a three run home run to Pablo Sandoval. That's not an out.
So I stopped filming, they brought in Esmil Rogers to get Guillermo Quiroz to fly out, and everyone went home happy.
The dome was open. Happy baseballing.
The dome, she's open!
Once again, the Jays jumped out to an early lead, and never looked back. Their win expectancy jumped to over 90% in the second inning and stayed there.
The open dome must have led to a large number of walk-up ticket sales because Wednesday's game was much louder than Tuesday's. One creative gentleman behind us was heard to remark the following:
And so on. He even joined in a bunch of people who were piling on Melky Cabrera who let a ball bounce over his head in left field. In the third inning. With the Jays up 8-1. After learning that he has [irritation in his hamstrings and quadriceps][7]. A day after having his best game as a Blue Jay. Yeesh. I'd hate to see what they'd do if it was a serious play in a high-leverage situation.
Oh, Colby Rasmus' walk-up music? "Boys 'round here" by Blake Shelton. I wish I hadn't looked it up, I was much happier thinking of it as that song that goes "Somethin' somethin' trucks, somethin' somethin' dust, somethin' somethin'".
I grabbed a few packs of 1991 Upper Deck and Score cards from one of the vending machines - it seems to me that the availability of cards must be waning, but I'll save that for another post. I like what I found: A bespectacled Valenzuela, nerds protecting bat racks, a juggling tuxedo-ed Ryne Sandberg, a Boston in New York, and more.
The only thing I didn't like? Two checklists in one pack of Upper Deck '91. What gives?
The Jays went on to win 11 - 3, and I enjoyed being on the fence. Either team could beat the brains out of the other, and it was no big deal. If every game could be so easy to enjoy.
One trend I hope to see continue is that of Jose Bautista hitting second. Since the move (I know it's only four games), he's hitting .534, with two home runs and three strikeouts (two of those coming on Wednesday). Not bad.
Make transcendent coffee with whatever beans you have on hand
I came across this recipe in the America's Test Kitchen feed a few years ago, bookmarked it and thought nothing of it - never gave it a shot. A happy coincidence the other day, when I picked up a French press around the same time I was clearing out the clutter in my bookmarks folder, I rediscovered this method of cold brew coffee and decided to give it a whirl.
The idea is basically to let the grounds sit in room temperature water for 24 hours. The lower temperature treats the grounds differently than your average high temperature brew would, reducing the acidity considerably, leaving you with a rich, smooth, strong coffee most suitably consumed in a small glass over ice, like a whiskey.
Oh, add a pinch of salt. Yes, a pinch of salt. Kosher, preferably. Fleur de Sel if you're feeling fancy.
The original post on ATK recommends three and a half cups of coffee and water, the combination of which would have overflowed my press. I pared it down to about two and a quarter cups of each, and the results were outstanding. The formula is simply 1:1 by volume. I was left with about a cup and a half of this powerful brew, and it lasted in the fridge for about three days.
One last thing: as with any other coffee, the better the beans, the better the brew. The amazing thing about this process, I used week-old Maxwell House and came away with the best coffee ever brewed in my kitchen.
What you'll need:
Step 1: Stir together coffee and water in large French press. Allow raft of ground coffee to form, about 10 minutes, and stir again to incorporate. Cover with plastic wrap and let sit at room temperature for 24 hours (an hour shorter or longer is fine).
Step 2: Using French press plunger, press firmly on grounds to separate them from concentrate. Pour coffee concentrate into coffee filter-lined fine-mesh strainer set over large measuring cup. Let sit until concentrate filters through, up to 30 minutes. (Coffee concentrate can be covered and refrigerated for up to 3 days).
Step 3: Combine coffee concentrate, a splash of cold water, and a pinch of Kosher salt (if using). Pour into glass with ice, and enjoy.
Andrew Stoeten at Drunk Jays Fans wrote an article late last month about the current (unfortunate) state of the Blue Jays and basically pointed out, yes - this season isn’t going as peachy keen as everyone expected, and yes - shit happens, so simmer down. It is a great piece, a must read for fans and detractors of this year's iteration of the Toronto Blue Jays. On Monday, Sam Miller at Baseball Prospectus presented the idea that it's not impossible to imagine a team making up ground after a bad stretch, and we're all stupid. At least that's what I took from it.
It got me thinking; what would it take, in terms of wins and losses, for the Blue Jays to get to where last year's 10 post-season bound teams were at different points in the season? You know, to make the losses incurred thus far seem a little more palatable. Or something. Engage embedded Google doc!
That's not that scary, now is it? If the Jays were to look to these scenarios, there are a few teams they could hope to replicate, most notably Detroit and Oakland.
Of course, none of this takes into account the records and actions of the teams ahead of them in the standings: let's look at this as wins and losses in a vacuum.
From the outset, a one month goal of playing just above .500 isn't that difficult to imagine. As the season progresses and players (read: Reyes and Johnson) return from injury, and individuals' numbers start to normalize, the task becomes less daunting. Sure, if it's going to take 95 wins to win the AL East a record of 82 and 46 from here on out sounds a little crazy, but what is baseball if not a little crazy?
The Jays have strung together three wins in a row for the first (and presumably not the last) time this season, they are 6.5 games out of the Wild Card (why am I looking at Wild Card standings in May?), and there are 128 games to go. Nothing's impossible, not even getting from here to there.
While I'm on the subject of getting from here to there, here being today and there being somewhere close to average, I want to look at Colby Rasmus and his strikeouts (good band name!). I don't know what it is, but I find myself gravitating towards him on a regular basis. I've written about his tendency to be just average, how one of my co-workers constantly calls him Erasmus, retweeted and tumblogged GIFs and photoshops of him to no end.
My affinity for Rasmus might lie in the fact that I had a job interview on the day he was traded to the Blue Jays, and his arrival to the team coincided with the promise of new challenges for myself. A new beginning for both of us. After he was essentially dogged of St. Louis and I had been dogging it at my job, a change of scenery was in order. As it happens, I didn't get the job, and Rasmus is still looking to reach the ceiling that so many had projected for him.
Huh. Maybe this requires further exploration. Or maybe I'm reading too much into it.
Back to his strikeouts: what would it take to get that number back to 'normal'? After tonight's game, Rasmus has 47 strikeouts in 115 plate appearances. That's a K% of 40.9% -- second highest strikeout percent in the league, behind Chris Carter of Houston. It's only the beginning of May, but for that number to get to what FanGraphs considers average (18.5%), Colby will have to hope not to strike out in his next 139 plate appearances, and then keep it in check from there on out.
With a swinging strike percentage of 17.8%, it appears that's going to be unlikely. (Only free swinging Pedro Alvarez, Ryan Howard and Josh Hamilton swing and miss more) Of course those numbers will normalize a little, but it's going to take nothing short of a miracle to get anywhere close to what is considered average. I won't be surprised to see him finish the season with a K% of at least 27%, but we'll revisit that in September.
I will say this: he's tied for second in homeruns by a center fielder, and he's leading the Blue Jays in batting fWAR with 0.9, so he's got that going for him. That, and there are precious few I'd rather have loping around center field.
Fandom I'm starting to wonder what it means to be a sports fan. The Blue Jays have lost twice as many games as they have won, and I'm not worried. (I feel like I've written about this recently) I'm not worried, because why should I be? Does a winning team come to your house and make you pancakes? Is your paycheck garnished with your favorite team's loss? So why, just thirty-one games into the baseball season would one a.) write their team off, and b.) get so irrationally angry about it? It's a long season.
The anger and vitriol spilling about after every loss, whether at work or on social media platforms, will drive one (like me) to believe that they are not doing their part as a fan. Why wouldn't I join in with my co-workers when ten games into the season they were convinced that "These Jays fucking suck!"? Am I wrong in believing in my favorite team? Misguided? Naive, even? My wife put it best when she pointed out that "Maybe people just enjoy pointing out the faults in other people, and other things." Perhaps that's it - being a fan is not about cheering for your team whether they're up or down. Being a fan seems to amount to looking at a flaw and saying "I knew you'd be no good", "You suck" and "I told you so".
(or maybe I'm just being facetious)
I don't know, I guess I am doing this whole being a fan thing wrong. All I know is I like baseball, a lot, and shitty baseball is better than no baseball at all. I'm happy to live in a town with a Major League Baseball team that I can root for. I'm going to hold out hope until it's mathematically impossible for the Blue Jays to secure a playoff berth, and I'll keep cheering for them after that.
This is the third in a series of posts featuring pitchers _not in the act of pitching_ from arguably my favorite baseball card series, Upper Deck 1993. Part one and two featured dudes signing things, guys high-fiving and Ron Darling crawling around on the dirt.
Let's call this volume The Quote Edition.
The last few weeks in Toronto baseball fandom have been wrought with panic, disgust, panic, vitriol, hope, and more panic. I must be looking at the current Blue Jays season a little cockeyed, because I'm not particularly worried. I say that because a lot of what's transpired so far (in my mind) comes down to bad luck. Sloppy defence and a lack of scoring hasn't helped anything, but let's cherry-pick and what-if for a moment.
As of this writing, the Blue Jays' record stands at 9-15, putting them last in the very tough AL East, 8.5 games behind the first place Boston Red Sox. Their run differential is -34, good for 28th in the league. The only teams behind them in that category are Houston and Miami.
In their 9 wins this season, they have outscored their opponent 55-33, with an average run differential per game of +2.4. In their losses, they have been outscored 38-94, with an average run differential per game of -3.7.
Here's where we cherry-pick. Two of those losses were blow-outs, April 7th when they lost 13-0 to Boston, and April 11th when they lost to the Tigers 11-1. Take those two games out of the equation and the run differential goes from -34 to -11. Sure, that doesn't sparkle, but it's much nicer to look at. Their run differential per game average moves up from -3.7 to -2.4.
Now for the what-ifs: the Jays have played in 9 one-run games, and have been on the losing end of 6 of those contests. What if those one-run losses were one-run wins? Their record jumps to 15-9, with a run differential of -22.
Let's take it one step further - what if those blow-outs never happened AND the one-run losses were one-run wins? The Jays would be 15-7, good for second place, half a game behind the (now) 16-7 Red Sox, and their run differential would be +1. PLAYOFFS!!1!
Alas, run differential doesn't decide the standings, and anyone could what-if any team into first place. The reality is that the Jays are 9-15, they are getting outscored by a metric buttload and if they don't win the World Series, the Baseball Gods will descend from where they reside on Mount Kinesaw Mountain Landis Landing and cut off the thumbs of all Blue Jays fans, so yeah. Go panic.
Stuff seen while walking about April 13 & 14.
Auger on Beverley near Dundas St. W
Earth Boring
Earth boring. Earth soooooo boring. Boooooooo Earth.
Public Parking - Spadina Avenue and Front St W
Roger's Centre. Not yours, not mine, not Rogers', but Roger's.
You want to see Roger? He's probably at his centre. It gets kind of busy there, so if his parking lot is full you could always stop by this place. Plenty of public parking for Roger's place. I mean centre.
Far East Food Products Ltd. - 70 Huron Street, Toronto, ON
"Manufacturers of giant fortune cookies your chopsticks will bring u good 4 tune & full tummy"
"Your chopsticks will bring u good 4 tune and full tummy" See? I keep telling you, it's not you, it's your fork. Switch to chopsticks and you'll see: luck and full tummies will come your way. Oh look, my late '90s punk rock band's album covers just came back from the printer:
"Giant 4 Tunes"
I guess black text on a black image wasn't a good idea
I turned eleven years old nine days before the Blue Jays won their first World Series, and I don't remember watching a lot of baseball before that. Sure, there are memories of driving people from their seats in the late 80's with the help of some blue and white plastic noisemakers, and a t-shirt to commemorate the 1989 ALCS, but nothing concrete.
Joe Carter, July 14th 1994
Photo: Paul K. Buck/AFP/Getty Images
I turned twelve just eight days before they won their second championship, and I don't remember a whole lot of baseball after that -- until recently, of course. I do remember a very long game, a picture of Ernie Whitt in my grandparents' foyer for some reason (on a program, I believe) and of course, hero to Torontonians everywhere, Joe Carter what with the touch-em-all and such.
One thing I don't remember about Carter was that on July 14th, 1994, he spent six innings roaming around right field in a jersey that read Torotno. Read that again: Torotno. Not only was it a bad day for the embroiderer who had their hands on said jersey, it was a bad day for Carter, who went 0-for-4 with two popouts, a flyout and a groundout. This particular photo captures so much ennui, so much hopelessness, with the drab background, the look on Carter's face, it's just perfect. Oh, on top of all that, the Jays lost that game 3-7.
Take the misspelled jersey, Carter's body language, his line for the game and the loss. Stretch your imagination a bit and combine them with the loss of the 1994 season, and you can't help but feel something about it. I know I certainly felt something, so I decided to commemorate it, and for the first time since high school, I painted.
Joe Carter Torotno
11" x 14" Acrylic on Canvas
After an hour here and an hour there, (mostly during pointless Raptors games) I now have Joe Carter and his misspelled jersey looking down on me when I sit on the couch, pondering my own futility. (Oh, so melodramatic!)
I think my next subject will be Colby Rasmus. Or my cat. Based on the picture below I'm going to have to start painting something soon because the wall is looking pretty bare.
This project is the final stage of something I made reference to in an earlier blog post, an Adobe Illustrator single-frame-rotoscope-esque drawing of the man in question.
My wall. She's bare.
Joe Carter, Torotno detail
Joe Carter, Torotno detail
Bonus Joe Carter Fun Fact: Another thing I missed while not paying attention to baseball. Joe Carter wore the number 29 for his entire career, except for about a week at the end of the 1997 season when he wore the number 43. He made the switch to honor his manager and friend Cito Gaston who had been fired, and he wanted to show his displeasure at the situation. Stand up guy, that Joe.
The White Sox are idle tonight. Hawk Harrelson is taking the time off to relax in the club house. Not the White Sox club house, his club house.
I don't know if this is has been done already, and if it has been, whether or not it's been done to death. I guess I could have Googled "SImpsons No Homers Hawk Harrelson White Sox" or something to that effect, but what's done is done, what's GIF'd is GIF'd.
For those not in the know, Hawk Harrelson is the Comcast Sports Network commentator for the Chicago White Sox, and a notorious homer, in that he is very passionate about the Sox, and very indifferent (and sometimes downright disprespectful) to opposing clubs. He's got a bandoleer full of catchphrases and an itchy trigger finger. He calls the White Sox players by their first names. //Shudder.
