Showing Up, New Bloggers, and the Definition of Dominance

Item 1: The Pirates actually showed up today against a legit Major League team. Quite an accomplishment, I think. Shane Youman tossed his first game for the Buccos this year, replacing the "injured" Zach Duke. Although 2 ER over 6 innings "feels" good, he only struck out two, walked one and allowed a home run. 4 out of 5 times, that line is going to net more than two earned runs. But we'll take it tonight, especially for his first start.

Meanwhile, the bullpen stepped it up bigtime. Marte, Chacon and Capps threw three innings, 5 SOs, no walks and no home runs! 4 out of 5 times, that line will net you no ERs. Way to look like a real major league team, guys!

Item 2: With Ken on hiatus, I feel our energy level is a little low around here. How do you guys feel about adding another blogger or two to liven things up? If you have anyone that would be interested in typing their fan-ranting for the likes of a huge audience of 2-10 people per day, maybe now would be a good time to add them. I know a rabid Indians fan who could add to our AL commentary.

Also, if we do happen to have any regular readers that we don't know about, maybe they should just leave a comment and we could just add them as authors.

Item 3: This year in interleague play (I just got around to looking at the final interleague standings today) there were TWO NL teams with winning records. Two! And one of them was the Rockies. Meanwhile, there were only THREE AL teams with losing records. Two of them are Baltimore and Tampa Bay, who have sucked almost as long as the Pirates, and the other was the White Sox, who I believe are scoring at a rate of one run a week. AL DOMINANCE. What do you think is more unbalanced right now, MLB or the NBA?

Only the Pirates could accomplish this.

Yesterday I said the Pirates were seven runs better than the Rangers.

Today they beat us by six runs.

Over all, I suppose, it's a wash.

So, what is the state of the Pirates organization now? We are 28-38, which is pretty bad, although to be honest, not as b


WE INTERRUPT THIS BLOG POST TO BRING YOU IMPORTANT NEWS:
Okay, I just found all of the sudden out in the middle of nowhere that I'm going to the U.S. Open in Pittsburgh tomorrow. What???!! yes, I am just as confused as you.

ad as last year at this time. That, of course, is irrelevant, as the winner of our division could conceivably end up under .500 anyway.

We are 8 games out of first place, though, and our season is over as far as contending goes. This is the second straight year we have jumpstarted the Yankees.

This is the earliest in a season I have ever stopped caring about the Pirates winning games.

We are just one win away to matching our inter-league win total of least season! (Three.)

The terrible-on-purpose-to-save-money draft pick has really stirred the Pirates fan community in Pittsburgh and on the internet. People are getting really, . really angry. If you don't believe me, check here, or here. People just can't take it anymore.

You may think your fans are depressed or that your team has bad times, but have you EVER seen a fan response like that middle link? And this is to one single draft pick. People are sick of the Pirates here. And they're sick of being told that management is trying to make the team better, when the team is obviously trying to spend the least amount of money possible. If attendance goes down, the owners just get more of the new and "improved" revenue sharing.

The Colorado Rockies are Coming!

I can't think of a better way to add to the excitement still lingering from the Arizonia Diamondback series. Actually, I can. Just give me any of the 13 other American League teams. In a perfect world, which would obviously be one where everything goes exactly how I want it to, Interleague Play would consist soley of the All Star game and the World Series.

The American and National Leagues were never really meant to mix. Talk about bitter rivials. I rememeber reading one book, maybe "Summer of '49" or "The Teammates" or something, which said that the All Star game was a time when Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio cooly put aside their differences and called a truce for one day to beat an even greater evil in the National League. The book went on to compare it to Roosevelt and Stalin allying to fight Hitler. This is suppose to be a once in a lifetime (or in baseball terms, once in a season) occurance.

I don't get that same impression. In fact, the All Star game is pretty meaningless (no comment on homefield advantage in the World Series...right now anyway). It use to be a good way to see all the National League's stars in action, size them up a bit. Now I've seen all these guys play at least three times over the past few years. The All Star game isn't gonna tell me anything new.

It's not fair for competition. Lets look at the National League East for a second. Florida gets to play Tampa Bay six times a year, whereas the Mets have to play the Yankees six times. Historically speaking, that's six easy wins for Florida and six really tough games for the Mets. Why should MLB constantly give the Marlins a six game advantage in that Division Race? The same can be seen in other races. The Cardinals get the Royals for six games a year. Plus, if these teams are battling for the National League Wild Card, wouldn't we all rather see them duke it out in another series or two rather than determine it in games with DHs?

It takes away from the World Series. I was always excited by the idea of having two franchizes who have never seen each other battle for the Ultimate Prize. Both teams traveling into ballparks for the first time ever, uncertain how the ball carries or how to play bounces off the wall. Since neither team had a common opponent, there was always an unknown element. Which was the better team? The 108 win NL team or the 94 win AL team? Nowadays, it's not unheard of to have teams play in the regular season and then meet again in the World Series. It's happened at least once I can think of ('99 Yankees vs. Braves. Probably 2000 Yankees vs. Mets, though I'm not positive on that one...).

From a selfish standpoint, Interleague Play isn't good for the Red Sox. They always have DHs who shouldn't be allowed to own a glove, nevermind actually field. When they go to NL parks, they either lose the bat or have a huge defensive liability.

I propose that Major League Baseball eliminates Interleague Play once and for all. Take the 18 games and add a series involving six teams in other divisions for sake of the Wild Card races.

JohnFromBoston 101

So, Joe and I figure we should all give introductions and as I have a huge test tomorrow I only kinda started studying for, I think now is the most appropriate time to give such an intro.

My name is John. I'm a 22 year old senior at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. I double major in Physics and Mathematics. I'm originally from Dorchester, the largest of Boston's 20 neighborhoods. I've been a Red Sox fan my entire life. I'm honestly wearing a Red Sox hat in my high school year book baby picture. My goal in said year book was "To live forever...or at least until the Red Sox win the World Series." Mission accomplished.

Anyway, aside from liking the Red Sox, I also dislike a few teams. Obviously the I can't stand the Yankees. I don't like the Indians as a result of the intense late 90s feuds they had with the Red Sox. If the Devil Rays were good I'd probably hate them too cause they also throw at Red Sox hitters and try to start brawls, but I mean, they're so bad it's kind of impossible to hold a grudge against them for too long. My favorite player of all time is Roger Clemens. I have the entire 25 man roster of the 2004 World Series Champions memorized and feel this should be a requirement to receive a high school diploma in New England.

Just a few thoughts about Major League Baseball: I like the fact that the DH is in the AL and not in the NL because its something pretty concrete to distinguish between the leagues and makes the World Series match ups more intrieging. I dislike interleauge play because I think it would be more worthwhile to play more games against the other teams in your own league for Wild Card Purposes. I also think not having Interleague play makes the All Star game more interesting and definately helps with World Series hype. Granted I was 11 years old when interleague started, but I always got the sense before it that if you won the pennant, you were heading into battle trying to conquer a great unknown. Because the leagues never mixed before the World Series, the regular season definately had no meaning whatsoever, which seemed alot more exciting. Now, odds are you've played the team within the past 2 seasons and it's just another round of playoffs...lame. Plus, with "natural rivals" it's not fair. Tell me if the Mets and Cardinals are battling for a wild card spot, it's fair the Mets play the Yankees six times whereas the Cardinals play the Royals six times. Come on. Also, the Red Sox have a lame natural rival. The Philadelphia Phillies? Yeah...that 1915 World Series was so intense that still, 92 years later I can't stand those gosh-darn Phillies.

Lastly, I hate divisions. Mostly cause the Yankees had the 5th best record in the AL in 2000 but still made the playoffs and won the World Series. Cheap stuff always benifitting the Yankees. I'd have two big leagues play balanced schedules without interleague play and the teams with the top four records would make the playoffs, but that's just me. I mean, look at the current defending champions, the St. Louis Cardinals, who I believe won as many post season games as regular season games. I don't think they deserved one of the 4 NL playoff spots, seeing as how the Mets, Phillies, Padres and Dodgers all had better records. Under my plan, teams would be rewarded for consistant play during the regular season.

Ok. That's it for now. I'll make predictions later on.

Oh yeah, by the way, the Pirates might have beat the Red Sox 3-2, but when it really counted in the 1903 World Series, we all know who came out on top.