Metal Sludge Gossip Board

dmbrocker wrote: ↑Mon Oct 24, 2022 4:24 am I can’t decide who I hate more: Dusty Baker or that crybaby Bryce Harper. Can’t both teams just lose?

Either I did and forgot or just didn't know Harper's a Mormon. I knew there was something about that guy.

"You can touch a lot more lives playing baseball and doing good things than you would on a mission,”

Bryce Harper: "Seriously, it takes me like 30 minutes to do my hair before a game.”

UtahRatt wrote: ↑Wed Nov 09, 2022 3:27 am

dmbrocker wrote: ↑Mon Oct 24, 2022 4:24 am I can’t decide who I hate more: Dusty Baker or that crybaby Bryce Harper. Can’t both teams just lose?

Either I did and forgot or just didn't know Harper's a Mormon. I knew there was something about that guy.

"You can touch a lot more lives playing baseball and doing good things than you would on a mission,”

Bryce Harper: "Seriously, it takes me like 30 minutes to do my hair before a game.”

Wait. Hairflip Boy is a fucking Mormon?

You've got to be kidding me. I guess it's possible to be even more dislikeable.

Fuck Dusty Baker though.

Justin Verlander AL Cy Young

Sandy Alcantara NL Cy Young

killeverything wrote: ↑Wed Nov 16, 2022 8:33 pm Justin Verlander AL Cy Young

Sandy Alcantara NL Cy Young

Deserving picks, especially Alcantara. What an old-school arm. Hope he maintains this. I saw this stat about him. Insane!

Number of 98+ MPH pitches thrown by MLB starting pitchers this season in the eighth inning or later:

Sandy Alcántara, 97
Shohei Ohtani, 8
Carlos Rodón, 5
Spencer Strider, 5
Graham Ashcraft, 4
Shane McClanahan, 3
Frankie Montas, 3
Dylan Cease, 3

Aaron Judge AL MVP

Paul Goldschmidt NL MVP

killeverything wrote: ↑Thu Nov 17, 2022 9:18 pm Aaron Judge AL MVP

Paul Goldschmidt NL MVP

Deserving for both. I was probably 60/40 in favor of Judge over Ohtani, just because he was a legit STAR at the plate and on the mound, but Judge's historic season wins out.

What's your prediction on Judge? Staying with the Yankees or signing somewhere else? It's not the George Steinbrenner Yankees where they'll throw the highest bid to anybody, but it's Judge.

Nate S Axel wrote: ↑Fri Nov 18, 2022 7:56 pm

killeverything wrote: ↑Thu Nov 17, 2022 9:18 pm Aaron Judge AL MVP

Paul Goldschmidt NL MVP

Deserving for both. I was probably 60/40 in favor of Judge over Ohtani, just because he was a legit STAR at the plate and on the mound, but Judge's historic season wins out.

What's your prediction on Judge? Staying with the Yankees or signing somewhere else? It's not the George Steinbrenner Yankees where they'll throw the highest bid to anybody, but it's Judge.

I was surprised to be reminded this is Goldschidt's first MVP. I've always thought he was vastly underrated.

Judge over Ohtani, I would have voted for Ohtani, but Judge made the Playoffs...

LAD is a WS contender and reportedly in the mix for Judge now too. He's from Northern CA, so if he chose a west coast team I believe SF would have the edge if he wasn't strictly going where he was paid the most.

Cashman says the offer on the table for Judge is time sensitive, but Steinbrenner/Cashman/Steinbrenner's kids just throw money at players. That's how NY operates and always will. Time sensitive my ass. They got their asses handed to them by the Astros and letting Judge walk would not be good PR.

Judge is mad about getting booed for choking in the Playoffs, but it's an AL East team. I was at Fenway when they booed Keith Foulke ( post 2004. Insane ), there is no way he doesn't know it's that competitive an atmosphere with rabid fan bases.

I think he stays in NY. If you were a superstar in NY with millions of dollars would you leave? Unless LAD or whatever offers him a billion dollars and NY a couple mill. He stays.

*edit

Rumor is MFY offered $337 million.

R.I.P. Gaylord Perry at 84. King of the spitballs:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/01/spor ... -dead.html

DeGrom 5/185m with Texas.

To the surprise of literally no one, Judge resigns with MFY 9/360m.

Nate S Axel wrote: ↑Thu Apr 20, 2023 5:41 am Go Las Vegas Athletics! Vegas finally gets its MLB team. Oakland sucks, but maybe we’ll allow them to be our AAA team.
https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/362 ... egas-strip

That is such bullshit. I have family in Oakland ( Berkeley ) that are pretty diehard, season ticket holding A's fans. The fan support is there, their ownership sucks.

Madison Bumgarner DFA by Arizona D'backs. He never was the same after that dirtbike accident. Being a hillbilly cost him his MLB career.

killeverything wrote: ↑Sat Apr 22, 2023 12:17 pm

Nate S Axel wrote: ↑Thu Apr 20, 2023 5:41 am Go Las Vegas Athletics! Vegas finally gets its MLB team. Oakland sucks, but maybe we’ll allow them to be our AAA team.
https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/362 ... egas-strip

That is such bullshit. I have family in Oakland ( Berkeley ) that are pretty diehard, season ticket holding A's fans. The fan support is there, their ownership sucks.

Agreed... my comments are directed at the ownership 100%. Easy to see why people wouldn't want to support them. It's a crappy situation for the fans all around.

All but official now. Relocation just has to be approved by MLB now, which by all measures should happen before the All Star Break.

The A’s stadium bill has cleared the Nevada Legislature and now heads to Gov. Joe Lombardo’s desk for his signature.

Lombardo has publicly supported the A’s move to Las Vegas, saying, “Las Vegas is a sports town, and Major League Baseball should be a part of it.”

Now that the outrage and anguish of Oakland Athletics fans at their reverse boycott has died down to a throbbing heartache, let’s put that memorable evening in perspective.

For this longtime observer of sports, here’s how it stacks up:

It was the loudest middle finger I’ve ever heard.

The shining moment came at the start of the fifth inning of Tuesday night’s Rays-A’s game at the Coliseum. As instructed via handouts, the crowd went silent as A’s reliever Hogan Harris came set to pitch. A dozen or so braying fools shouted during the silence, but they couldn’t kill the eerie vibe created by nearly 30,000 raucous fans going pin-drop quiet.

Then Jose Siri doubled to left, triggering the end to the silence and cueing the chant of “Sell! The! Team!” The chant swelled to the level of a lion’s roar in a phone booth. It echoed around the big concrete bowl, creating a row-row-row-your-boat outrage in the round.

The entire evening, from suiting up in “SELL” T-shirts in the parking lot before the game, to the postgame barrage of litter onto the field, was unprecedented — and cool as hell.

The night will go down as one of the great protest moments in the history of the Bay Area, long an epicenter of pushback against abuse of power. The reverse boycott wasn’t on the epic level of San Jose State’s Tommie Smith and John Carlos raising black-gloved fists on the victory podium at the ’68 Olympics, but it tapped into that same fierce spirit of defiance.

The reverse boycott surely rated nods of approval from the ghosts of Oakland take-no-guffers like Bill Russell, Frank Robinson and Curt Flood. And don’t forget Bruce Maxwell, the A’s catcher who in 2017 became the first MLB player to join the kneeling anthem protests started by former 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick.

The reverse boycott was reminiscent of Boo Joe Lacob Night in 2012, when Golden State Warriors’ fans at Oracle Arena laid an unmerciful torrent of derision on the new team owner. They were unstoppable in their rage, driven in no small part by Lacob’s telegraphed intent to move their team to San Francisco.

Let’s not forget the 2000 NBA All-Star Game at the same Coliseum Arena, when the packed house saluted then-owner Chris Cohan (and his young son) by booing the hapless, clueless owner off the court.

Those classic receptions hit home, the targets properly embarrassed and abashed. Tuesday represented a whole new thing in sports — a team owner and his team president, John Fisher and Dave Kaval, mocked and ridiculed in absentia with chants and cheers. No boos!

The nightlong enthusiasm and energy of the protestors was amazing, considering that their efforts were futile. Nevada lawmakers had just voted to clear what seemed to be the final hurdle in that state’s team-napping scheme, so fans entering the Coliseum knew their A’s were a dead team walking.

The bad news from Nevada, rather than killing the rally spirit, fueled the fury. The Coliseum crowd became the world’s largest primal-chant grief support group.

The A’s announced an attendance of 27,759, but this team’s management is notoriously bad with numbers. I estimated the crowd at well over 30,000, as did other veteran observers.

The night would have been powerful anyway, but team management and MLB managed to validate and amplify the protest message.

Just before the game, the A’s announced that the game’s ticket revenues, $811,107, would be donated to two local charities. That’s a fine donation, but what a nutty coincidence that of all the games in John Fisher’s 19 seasons as team owner, it came on a night when fans were protesting his greed and heartlessness.

Conveniently omitted from the media release was the fact that the donation amount would have been closer to $80,000 were it not for the protest.

Throughout the game, the Coliseum audio and video people tried to dampen the protest. Video screen shots of fans were carefully framed and edited to exclude any of the thousands of “SELL” T-shirts. When fans chanted before each inning, the stadium DJ cranked the music to earsplitting levels.

The A’s radio and TV announcers told listeners about the high energy in the stands, but carefully avoided any mention of protests, chants, signs or T-shirts. MLB.com’s reportage also declined to acknowledge the protest. The Rays’ TV crew, meanwhile, did actual journalism, delivering a strong live report on the protest.

This is a nitpick, but I wish the chanting had been extended to include baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred. The next day, Manfred reinforced the tone-deafness of baseball. He fibbed by saying Oakland never made the A’s an offer. Then he went all insult-comic on the A’s fans, mock-saluting the protesters for presenting “almost an average major league baseball crowd in the facility for one night.”

That’s quite a zinger, solidifying Manfred’s rep as almost an average Major League Baseball commissioner. And that bar is limbo low.

If the righteousness of a protest can be measured by the buffoonery of its targets, the reverse boycott belongs in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Maybe just a simple display case with a “SELL” T-shirt.

I had low expectations for the event. I’ve seen too many fan-led protests fizzle. When the Raiders announced they were leaving Los Angeles to return to Oakland in 1995, a fan protest in L.A. drew about six people.

This protest kicked fanny. The fans gave a proper sendoff to Fisher and Kaval and the rented mule they rode in on.

Gertrude Stein would have been amazed. In Oakland on Tuesday night, there was plenty of there there.

Reach Scott Ostler: [email protected]; Twitter: @scottostler





He has authored several books and written for many national publications. Scott has been voted California Sportswriter of the Year 13 times, including six times while at The Chronicle. He moved to the Bay Area from Southern California, where he worked for the Los Angeles Times, the National Sports Daily and the Long Beach Press-Telegram.

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Nate S Axel wrote: ↑Wed Jun 28, 2023 8:19 pm Domingo German of the Yankees with the first perfect game since 2012! It doesn't really count though since it was against the Athletics.

It couldn't have happened for a worse player too.

81 game suspension for beating the shit out of his wife, caught pitching with substances on his hands twice...the second resulted in a 10 game suspension.

I want to be impressed with final line, because it is impressive on paper ( 9IP 0H 0BB 9SO 99Pit 0.236WPA )

BUT in reality it's probably as impressive as Houston's 2017 "Championship."

killeverything wrote: ↑Sun Jul 02, 2023 12:49 am

Nate S Axel wrote: ↑Wed Jun 28, 2023 8:19 pm Domingo German of the Yankees with the first perfect game since 2012! It doesn't really count though since it was against the Athletics.

It couldn't have happened for a worse player too.

81 game suspension for beating the shit out of his wife, caught pitching with substances on his hands twice...the second resulted in a 10 game suspension.

I want to be impressed with final line, because it is impressive on paper ( 9IP 0H 0BB 9SO 99Pit 0.236WPA )

BUT in reality it's probably as impressive as Houston's 2017 "Championship."

Agreed... he went back to sucking tonight. Didn't even make it 5 innings. Philip Humber once pitched a perfect game too.

killeverything wrote: ↑Sun Jul 02, 2023 12:49 am

Nate S Axel wrote: ↑Wed Jun 28, 2023 8:19 pm Domingo German of the Yankees with the first perfect game since 2012! It doesn't really count though since it was against the Athletics.

It couldn't have happened for a worse player too.

81 game suspension for beating the shit out of his wife, caught pitching with substances on his hands twice...the second resulted in a 10 game suspension.

I want to be impressed with final line, because it is impressive on paper ( 9IP 0H 0BB 9SO 99Pit 0.236WPA )

BUT in reality it's probably as impressive as Houston's 2017 "Championship."

I agree. I think he just didn't caught this time

Mets send Max Scherzer to Texas for LuisAngel Acuna and TX paying $22.5m of contract ( I think ).

Verlander is on the trade list too. LAD, TX, and HOU are interested.

killeverything wrote: ↑Sat Jul 29, 2023 5:18 pm Mets send Max Scherzer to Texas for LuisAngel Acuna and TX paying $22.5m of contract ( I think ).

Verlander is on the trade list too. LAD, TX, and HOU are interested.

That was fast. Yesterday Mad Max was going to "sit down and talk" with ownership to learn the direction they were going, and then he's gone. Must have been a quick talk.

Verlander to Astros.

Nate S Axel wrote: ↑Thu Aug 17, 2023 6:14 pm Will Wander Franco play Major League Baseball again?
https://www.facebook.com/thebsblr/posts ... jVB9BFVcAl

Maybe in the Penal League




Shohei Othani has a torn UCL and will not pitch again this season. What horrible news. Ohtani was a player that I think everyone was pulling for. Similar to Judge passing Maris or Pulols' 400.

So much for being the first billion dollar player too. Damn.

Told ya Bryce Harper’s an insufferable jerk. He definitely deserves to be punished for this ump charge:

https://www.yahoo.com/sports/phillies-s ... 59469.html

dmbrocker wrote: ↑Fri Sep 29, 2023 11:47 am Told ya Bryce Harper’s an insufferable jerk. He definitely deserves to be punished for this ump charge:

https://www.yahoo.com/sports/phillies-s ... 59469.html

I dunno. I can't stand Harper, but he's not wrong. That's Angel Hernandez the world's first blind umpire.

I'm certain I read a few years back that Hernandez has the most missed calls out of all ups. That included Joe West.

I dislike a lot of the changes baseball has been going through, but Hernandez makes me like the idea of automated umpiring. Piece of shit.