756

I went out to the kitchen to get a sweet, and when I came back into the living room, a fly ball soared into the stands at AT&T Park in San Francisco, and Barry Bonds passed Hank Aaron in the record books as the all-time home run king.

I did not expect to have any reaction at all, really, as I've always been a bit torn on the subject of Bonds. I think, in some ways, people dislike Bonds so much for reasons that have nothing to do with his alleged steroid use, but on the other hand, if the alleged steroid use turns out to be for real, I understand the people who don't want to call Bonds the home run king.

I thought I'd just sit there, like Bud Selig did for 755, hands in my pockets, observing something that is at the very least, historic, even if it turns out not to be a true changing of the guard in the long run.

But instead, I started smiling.

And then I laughed, and clapped my hands, and settled down into the couch to watch the festivities.

I... did not expect to be happy when this happened, but it turns out that I was.

So... today pretty much sucked.

Mark Shapiro's tone changed dramatically from Friday on Sports Time Ohio to Tuesday on Baseball Tonight. During his appearance on STO, during Kenny Lofton's first game this year with the Indians, Shapiro spoke so frankly of the need for bullpen help and his ability to get that bullpen help, we at Let's Go Tribe assumed the trade was all but done. On Baseball Tonight, Shapiro was subdued, and talked up Rafael Perez, Big Raffy, and JoBo to the point LGT had to accept that a trade probably wasn't going to happen. Shapiro spending the trade deadline making an ESPN appearance was probably a big clue there, too.

To mend my heart, I went to a pretty amazingly awful Fort Wayne Wizards game, and I was all set to come home and upload pictures and tell you all about it, but, uh. My laptop won't turn on.

And I finally get on the internet on the desktop, only to find out Fernando Cabrera's been designated for assignment.

I know I said Ferd wasn't my boyfriend anymore, but, um.

I lied.

So I think I'm going to put off that entry on the Wizards, and go lie on the couch and mourn Ferd¹ and Lappy 3.0.

Tomorrow will be a better day. I'm going to go back to Fort Wayne to see Cory Luebke's debut. And I'm excited about it. And you can't stop me.

¹ Yeah, he could go unclaimed and end up in Buffalo which is what I'm hoping for. But I'm not getting my hopes up.

I'm... hesitant.

Today, my mother and I decided we needed to go shopping, because she's been wanting a dress, and I've been wanting new shoes and sunglasses. So, somehow I wound up in Indiana eating French fries during a shopping break instead of catching some of the important parts of tonight's game against the White Sox.

I did manage to catch the almost-comeback, and that was certainly important. While I'm not as happy as I would have been if the comeback had actually been successful, being able to turn an 11-5 score into an 11-10 score in the bottom of the eighth is the sort of thing that makes me love this team.

That said, I missed the debut of Jensen Lewis, which makes me kind of disappointed, since we shall be forever entwined on the blogosphere. Or, well, in the blogosphere that exists, you know, in my mind.

Even more importantly, I might have missed the last Fernando Cabrera outing with Cleveland. This might be the tendency of we over at Let's Go Tribe to assume change is coming more quickly than it really is, but given Cabrera's continued inability to be effective in any way, he's basically a wasted roster spot on a team that could use a little bit more bullpen help. (As pointed out in tonight's game thread: with Fernando and Trot, it's much like Cleveland only really has a 23-man roster, sometimes.)

And, you know... I understand the need for Fernando to be moved, but he's out of options, which means he'd have to pass through waivers for us to send him down to Buffalo, and while he has a tendency to explode on a semi-regular basis, he also displays occasional flashes of brilliance, so I'm not sure there wouldn't be some team out there willing to give the kid a shot.

Which is really the problem.

I understand the need to get Fernando off the 25-man roster. If he still had options, I'd be the first person clamoring for him to be sent down to Buffalo. (Okay, probably not the first, because there's always someone out there clamoring for changes when they don't need to be made, but you know what I mean. And please ignore my proximity to both Indianapolis and Toledo, and therefore my secret desires for Fernando to get sent down to Triple-A so I could go see him play much more often. That's completely unrelated. Mostly.)

But the thing is that, even though I "broke up" with Fernando back in May, I'm not sure I've really cut ties with him emotionally. I mean, he's still the guy who used to be my baseball boyfriend. It's hard to get used to the idea of him leaving, and not leaving because he can get a better contract somewhere else, but... in a situation like this, where he might end up being part of a trade, or getting DFA'd and claimed off waivers, and...

My point here is that, look, Mr. Shapiro, if you're going to make a move here, make it fast, because I need to stop stressing and start getting over the worst baseball ex-boyfriend ever.

Boo. I need a soft pretzel and some low-A ball to drown my sorrows. So... you'll probably get more Wizards updates this week. The team's playing the Clinton Lumberkings (Texas Rangers affiliate), so if there's anyone you guys want me to check out, give me a heads up before tomorrow evening!

Keeping Score

So I was talking to my mom about how we have a nearby-ish minor league team in our area (Fort Wayne Wizards, San Diego Padres low-A), and how we ought to go to games more. Or... ever. And this conversation led me to thinking about how I ought to start keeping score of games I attend. Especially if I'm going to be a minor league nerd.

I asked some of my friends, and got some good resources. (I used the printable basic rules from Baseball Scorecard.Com's download's page, and the grey pitching stats sheet from here.)

I'm really digging getting into scoring the game, which I practiced with tonight's Indians @ Blue Jays game on the TV. This is primarily because I am kind of a weirdo about pitch counts and pitches per plate appearance, and it's pretty cool keeping track. The scorecard I printed off didn't quite fulfill my needs in that respect, so I might have to edit it once I get more used to scoring games.

I have to find a good portable AM radio to bring with me to the game on Sunday, because I figure, if I'm going to games by myself, and scoring them, I might as well bring along my radio for company. It will make me feel less lonesome and more nerdy. And one always needs to feel more nerdy.

Okay, that last part is a lie.

Now to go trawl the internet for information on Padres prospects so I can see who I need to pay attention to.

And to... go to mall tomorrow and buy myself a jean skirt, since it's getting to the hot part of the summer where I don't want to go to games in pants anymore.

7/02 Milwaukee Brewers at Pittsburgh Pirates

I decided to go see an NL game for two teams I only mildly care about on Monday to break up my drive back to Ohio, primarily because I've heard good things about PNC Park and wanted to check it out.


I'm going to say up front, I found the park a little bit over-rated. This is probably partially the fault of a six-hour drive to get there combined with construction all over the place where the directions I got from the internet told me to go, but I just really wasn't feeling it. There were stairs in weird places, nothing beyond the world of the soft pretzel for me to eat, and the park was clearly designed for someone significantly taller than me, as evidenced by the bar directly in my line of sight from my first-row outfield seats. I'm also not really sure how I feel about the use of the Pirates of the Caribbean music either, but I figure, hey, you got a theme that all the cool kids are into nowadays, might as well milk it, right?

I actually ran into one of their two mascots (the pirate, not the parrot), like, literally, as I was coming out of the bathroom. I am not a big mascot fan, but I do appreciate a mascot that isn't a blatant rip-off of the Phanatic. (I'm talking to you, Slider.)

It was also kind of weird going from the raucous Philadelphia scene to the drudging toward another losing seasonness of Pittsburgh. This is, of course, no real knock on Pirates' fans. It's just weird how the attitudes of different fanbases affects how much I can really enjoy a game. I had the same problem in Philly, actually.

'Cause here's the thing. In Cleveland, you've got two options: if we're down, we can always have a hugely dramatic comeback. And if we're up, we're waiting for the bullpen or defense to blow it. In Philly there was this attitude that when you were down, there was no way you were catching up, and those fans are angry about feeling that way. The Pittsburgh fans? They're just kind of resigned at this point.

Anyway, for all I've heard about the young arms in Pittsburgh, I ended up catching the start of some dude I'd never heard of, (Van Benschoten) who didn't have the best numbers, and looked like he was pulling a Cliff Lee type outing, but ended up coming through with a quality start.

Actually, the game was pretty good through six innings.

And then Kuwata came out of the Pirates' bullpen and gave up 7 runs, and I said, "To heck with this," and committed a cardinal sin by leaving the game early. To be fair, I was worried about traffic and also not falling asleep on the road on the still five hour drive home.

So, yeah, sorry for punking out on you, Pittsburgh.

The park's pretty anyway.

And I ended up getting a Sanchez shirt 'cause the store was all out of Bay ones. And I wept. Or, you know, was kind of disappointed.

Here, have some pictures. Mostly of the Brewers.

6/29 (DH) & 7/01: New York Mets at Philadelphia Phillies

So, I wasn't super-informative about where I was going to be when, apparently, but I drove out from the western side of Ohio to the general Reading, Pennsylvania area on June 28, which took about 11 hours, given the fact that I had to stop to pee about a gajillion times on the way. (Note to future roadtrippers through Pennsylvania, the turnpike is kind of 1) crazy 'spensive, 2) chock full o' "construction." I don't really have a problem with one of these things at a time, but if I'm paying $14.50 to drive on your road for five and a half hours, I better be able to drive 65 mph on pretty much all of it, y'know?)

In Reading, I caught up with my girl Leanne, who is a ginormous Phillies fan. (The ginormousness being her fanitude, not her body shape. She is actually rather wee, which is mostly notable because I dig hanging out with people who make me feel less short.) Leanne's AL team in the '90s was the Cleveland Indians, which is, of course, why we are friends, in spite of the fact that I really never paid attention to those teams, because that was when I was in junior high and high school and was mostly into, like, wearing black lipstick and listening to The Cure and occasionally going to minor league hockey games. Um.


Anyway, some of Leanne's buds canceled on her, so I got hooked up with tickets to both ends of the day/night Phillies/Mets double-header at Citizens Bank Park last Friday. I'd never been to Citizens Bank Park, and that last time I was in Philly it was part of a fat-camp daytrip when I was, like, 12. (You think I'm kidding?) And the last time I actually, like, saw the Phillies play a game in person was, like, what? 1993? Back before John Kruk had a job on ESPN anyway.

We got up crazy early (for me, anyway), and drove down to the train station and headed into Philly with our many shirts and our sign for Cole Hamels for the night game. I now understand the "Cole Hamels can make SEPTA run on time" joke from Cole Hamels Facts. I mean, not that any other public transportation with which I am moderately familiar is particularly punctual, but SEPTA was notably bad, although we did manage to catch the express to the sports complex once we were in Philly most of the time.

I found Citizens Bank Park a little bit too... much. I don't know. There was a lot of stuff going on. It was a little carnival-y. Also, upper decks in the outfield is, like, a lot of seats. I don't know. This is probably just Jacob's Field being a little more unassuming than the general hugeness of Citizens Bank Park.

Before the first game, we went down and did the whole autograph thing. J.A. Happ was signing really early, and Leanne kind of freaked out because she recognized the dude from all the Reading Phillies games she's gone to. So they had this whole conversation, which was primarily made up of Mr. Happ being all smiles about getting called up, if just for a spot start on Saturday (and for which he wasn't officially called up until they sent Geary down after the double-header, but whatever). Dudes on their first trip to the Big Leagues are pretty much the cutest.

Then Jamie freakin' Moyer came out, and by that point we'd been doing some wandering about and Leanne grabbed my hand and we ran over to the Phillies' side of the park again so she could get her boy's autograph, since she has a crush on every boy... over 40.

Let me take a moment to talk about how pretty much awesome Jamie Moyer was with the local fans. He's apparently a PA guy and came out for about 20-30 minutes before every single game we were at to sign for people. Dude is pretty much awesome with the Philly fans. I tip the cap I am not currently wearing to you, Mr. Moyer.

Eventually we made it up to our seats, which were behind a really cute dude who was scoring the game. At first we thought he was pretty quiet and nice, but then some Mets fan spilled beer on his scorebook, and Mr. Phillies Fan's friends showed up, and by the eighth inning we had a dude who was perfectly willing to heckle a four-year old sitting in front of us. It was kind of amazing, in a horrific and also a little bit awesome kind of way.

Like, you know how you have that friend in your group who's a total jerk to everyone in the group, but he's also a total jerk to everyone outside of your group, too? And he's really funny when he does it, in that completely unapologetic about being an asshole kind of way? So you can't really bring yourself to stop being friends with him because then you'll miss all the hilarity? That was this guy. We almost tried to hook him up with our extra ticket for the night game because we wanted to keep him around, but were too intimidated. Also, a little bit of hilarious asshole sometimes goes a long way, and flipping off four-year olds is really only funny once per week.

So, uh. The Phillies lost that game, which sort of sucked, but I was mostly only rooting for them because, you know, guest!

We got shuffled out of the park in between the games, so we wandered over to the Holiday Inn next door to suck up air conditioning and change our shirts. And buy more waters at a slightly less inflated price than they charge actually in the ball park.

The second game of the day we ended up in the last row of the 300 level in right field, which was pretty sweet. We ended up hanging up our Cole Hamels sign on the fence behind us.

I admit, once it became obvious that 1) Cole Hamels did not bring his A Game to the game, and 2) The Phillies apparently don't believe in patience at the plate, I kind of got distracted by the bickering between Mets and Phillies fans around me. There were some Mets fans in front of us, one of whom kept trying to flirt with every female Phillies fan he could find. And there were a lot of them in our general area. Mr. Mets fan did not flirt with me, but I introduced myself as "an Indians fan in disguise," when he was all upons Leanne, so I mostly got brushed off. Clearly the dude was all about ladies who kind of hate him. Which I mean, whatever, dude. Some people are into skinny blonde girls, some people are into ladies who wear a lot of leather, some people are into David Wright, whatever gets you going, I guess. And he wasn't handsy or anything, just into bantering with ladies who kind of hate his favorite team. I guess I'm okay with that, although I might not be okay with that if, like, you know, some White Sox fan came to the Jake and did that to me.

Across the aisle from us there was the Worst Phillies Fan Ever, who kept touching and clapping at and generally being a dick to the Mets fan sitting in front of him. There may have been a fight.

With an usher.

I don't know. It was a little crazy. There were a lot of people who had been drinking since the start of the day game, I think.

Leanne, who is very pro-being-a-dick-to-Mets-fans-when-they're-in-your-house actually went up and apologized to the Mets fans, and they were kind of, you know, "hey, it's cool. We know you're not all like that." So that was actually a little heartwarming.

The train out of Fern Rock was crazy late getting into the station, and we ended up not getting home until about 1:30 in the morning, so we did not go to a Reading Phillies game the next day, but instead we hung out in our "shirts we don't leave the house in" (That is, her Glavine Mets shirt and my Santana Twins shirt), and watched the Phillies game and then the Marlins game on TV and ate crackers and watched all the back-issues of Teen Girl Squad.

Sunday (July 1), we headed back into Philly for the next game, for which we had seats in the last row of the 400 level, which was a little bit vertigo-inducing, I admit. The atmosphere at this game was much pleasanter than the first two, and random people gave us soft pretzels and mustard. Leanne also totally abandoned me near Jose Mesa when we were down along the baselines autograph fishing again, so she could run over and see who was signing over by the Mets dugout, since none of the Mets had signed at either game we attended.


By which I mean she got Tom Glavine's autograph and we jumped around and screamed like morons about it for a couple seconds. Uh. As you do. I don't know. Sometimes you just get crushes on dudes over 40. (I still love you, Roger O'Donnell!)

Leanne is totally going to kill me over me publicizing her thing for Glavine.

Anyway, we spent most of the game making lame Teen Girl Squad-inspired jokes about the game ("A-Row'd!" being my favorite, but "CHILDREN!" being the most often stated because there were many cute children in our surrounding area.), and quoting The Dugout at each other, and making lots of jokes about our made-up world about A Very Wee David Wright and his Fondness for Other People and Sometimes Food.

In the realm of the Vegan Baseball Roadtrip, I discovered during the night game that on the Pavilion (200) Level on the right-field side the South Philadelphia Market has vegan gardenburgers. The water ice from Philadelphia Water Ice is also dairy-free. Beyond that, you're stuck with your standard ball-game fare (that is: soft pretzels, and if you're living dangerously, french fries).

We didn't try to do any away-from-the-ballpark eating on our treks due to time constraints and our autograph/photograph obsessions, but there's really not a lot directly near the ballpark anyway, since it's out in this ginormous sports complex that's mostly surrounded by several miles of parking lot. I am only kind of kidding.

You can check out the full photo album from the games here.

My report from PNC Park coming soon.

Hopefully.

Ladies and gentlemen, your back-up catcher!

I was going to upload the post-game interview with Kelly Shoppach, but Google Video is being sassy and there was no Leadership Pie, so I'll just have to live without it.

My point here is that I am freaking out. There's just something about a walk-off, especially when the team scores five runs in the bottom of the ninth that's just...

As depressed as I want to be about this team sometimes, the fact that they keep doing this always leaves that glimmer of hope in me any game I watch. And some of that is just relentless positivity, and some of that is, you know, this team can be really good.

And the best thing I've taken out of these past two games? It looks like Pronk's mojo might be back.

June 25, 2007: Oakland at Cleveland

So, it turns out C.C. started the game on Monday after all. This was a pleasant surprise for me!

Jake Westbrook threw me a ball during batting practice, but I gave it to this nice high school age girl from Maine I'd been talking to.

I have plenty of things to talk about, but for now, here, have some blurry-as-hell photos.

The win tonight brings my personal record to 2-2 all time at Jacobs Field, and 2-1 for the year. Not too bad for someone who's caught three Cliff Lee starts out of four

This is starting to get ridiculous

I could, I suppose, talk about my Tigers fan friends freaking the heck out about the Mike Maroth-to-the-Cardinals deal that went down today. Because, seriously, dude's been there since the beginning (for definitions of "beginning" that mean "the 119 loss season"), and it's kind of weird him not being a Tiger anymore.

But the important thing here is that I checked the probable pitchers for the Cleveland/Oakland series today. And, okay, I did math and counted days and all that good stuff to try to get a pitcher I hadn't seen before for this game.

And then Jake Westbrook decided he's going to come off the disabled list, and the rotation got shuffled, and I am seeing my fourth--Fourth!--Cliff Lee start since last September.

I mean, I love me some Sleepy Kitten, but I'd like to see somebody else start a game every once in a while, Clifton.

If only I actually liked Cliff enough for it to be reasonable for me to take this as a sign and declare the Kitten my boyfriend.

I'm not dead!

Apologies for my extended absence. I did end up successfully passing all my classes and finally getting that golly gosh-darned B.A. In the interim, the Indians have been playing the Reds.

This series is both the most and least fun of the entire interleague thing for me. I've explained how I started my baseball love as a Reds fan before, and I do still have a bit of fondness for them. (Mostly due to my unholy love for both Adam Dunn and now Josh Hamilton.) So, on the one hand, no matter who wins, I'm happy. And on the other hand, no matter who wins, I'm a little bit sad. You know how it is.

And then, you know, Red Reporter and Let's Go Tribe started getting a little snippy with each other, and really it's just a lot of stress for one girl to take.

I post, without commentary, this Sketchy Pointing The Camera At The TV O Vision video of Homer Bailey's post-game interview Friday night:



And now I will sit back and say nothing until this stupid series is over and I can go back to not feeling conflicted or upset about baseball for a while.


If you will recall, the last segment of Boyfriend Tryouts will be coming shortly. I admit, I've been slacking a bit on the blogging now that I'm done with school. Sorry about that. The lulz are forthcoming, I'm sure.

Pie!

So I've been busy studying for tests and writing up final papers and whatnot because if I do not do these things, I do not finally get my B.A. However, to keep y'all entertained, have some video, now in super-sketchy Pointing The Camera At The TV-vision.

Boyfriend Tryouts: The Distant Possibilities & Half-A-Chances

Before I get into discussing tonight's crop of possible baseball boyfriends, I think I should inform you that Boyfriend Reject Captain Pee-Pee Dance has been sent back down to the minor leagues, and Franklin Gutierrez has been called up. Gutierrez is also on the "Guys who are going to be bumped around from the majors and minors too much to be worth my while" list.

Farewell, Captain Pee-Pee Dance. You will... probably not be missed that much. And I'm certain we'll meet again.

Today, I would like to discuss the guys on the Indians roster who are not terribly likely to become my boyfriend, but aren't straight up out of question like the outright rejects of the last entry.

So, barely making the cut-off is David Dellucci. Dellucci is, unfortunately, kind of a bum. And, in spite of that time he helped finish Josh Barfield's fight for him, still doesn't quite feel like a member of the team.

However, I've been told by the Ladies... that he has a very nice butt, and although I am not often that interested in dudes' butts, I'll accept this as a possible pro. I also approve of any dude who has Serious Religious Discussions about his Batting Average with Nuns. Mostly because I think nuns are pretty all right. So, whatever, Dellucci. You gotta prove yourself to me, but I guess you have a chance.



Then, there's Rafael Betancourt. Originally, when I was planning this series of posts, I made a big list of Pros & Cons. I tried to come up with three pros and three cons for every single guy on the list, but Raffy had a very short list.

Cons:
1. The whole steroids thing.

Pros:
1. Good at baseball.
2. Has a robot arm.

Perhaps "robot arm" is a bit of an overstatement, but there's something about a dude who pitches with an arm with screws and metal plates and the like in it that I approve of. (Note: If I had begun following the Indians slightly earlier, Charlie Nagy would have been my boyfriend.) I also like calling him Señor Robot Arm.

That said, I've been mightily discouraged from the possibility of Raffy becoming my New Boyfriend by the fellows at Let's Go Tribe, primarily because being my boyfriend has been a curse in the past. So I'm a little focused on how Relievers As Boyfriends pretty much never works out, and also on the whole steroids thing.


In a similar story, there's Jason Michaels. Sure, J-Mike (or "Malibu" as he is sometimes known on the Indians blogosphere) has that whole "cop punchin'" thing, and I'm really hesitant to endorse somebody who cannot manage his anger; this is not because I'm particular opposed to cop-punchin' (If a dude's gotta punch someone, it may as well be someone with some training in self-defense, right?), but because a dude who decks a cop for no good reason is someone I don't trust to not punch other kinds of people.

Still, there's something endearing about at the dude. Maybe it's that he's got that whole "stupid frat boy" thing still going for him due to all that time hanging out, being beffies with Pat Burrell. Maybe it's just that he tends to make me smile. I don't know.

I have too many reservations about him to put him on the list of Serious Boyfriend Prospects, but I can't quite bring myself to put him in with the rejects, since I am slightly fond.

However, if J-Mike is your boyfriend, check out J-Mike.Com.


Mike Rouse doesn't really have anything not going for him. Utility infielders are actually kind of made for boyfriendom. They don't play all that much, and they're scrappy, and they're usually kind of small for ball-players, which makes them not very intimidating, and they seem like generally all right dudes.

I don't know a whole lot about Rouse except that we got him from the Athletics, which is also a good sign. I like the A's. They're often an attractive bunch. Um.

The down side of Rouse is that... I miss Joe Inglett.

That's pretty much it. Sorry, Rouse, you're not Super Joe. You've got a lot of ground to make up to win my affections.

Objective? No. But Boyfriends are a subjective thing.


Casey Blake has started growing on me. I've always been a little bit fond of him because he was friends with dudes on the team I liked, but I'm starting to appreciate Blake for what he is now.

The beard is certainly working for him. (Though I don't find it all that attractive, I'll go with the Mountain Man look if it's helping Blake hit.)

He's got all the charm of the utility player, with none of the "will he get sent down for another dude?" worries. Still, there's something about Blake that I just can't put my finger on that makes me hesitant to put him on the Serious Considerations list. He could be a good dark horse candidate, I suppose.


Jeremy Sowers seems like an okay dude. He's smart! He has that weird obsession with things from the 1980s that all kids our age seem to! He's got skinny little chicken legs. I tend to watch the games he starts and just sit there going "Oh, his little knees." So you'd think Sowers would be higher on this list.

Sadly, a part of being a baseball boyfriend is being either a big enough personality that I don't care that you are not particularly good at baseball, or being relatively good at at least some aspect of baseball. Jeremy is not having a very good year. I don't want to have a boyfriend that I'm eventually just going to get fed up with. Sorry, Sowers. You can always make it up to me by being awesome!



I actually have a lot of the starters on this list.

Cliff Lee is a Sleepy Kitten! This sort of "Oh, that's just the Sleepy Kitten being the Sleepy Kitten" personality thing is always good for a boyfriend. The downside is that Sleepy Kittens sometimes forget to cover first base because they get distracted by something shiny, or maybe have to go take naps.

Cute kid, though, Cliff.








C.C. Sabathia sort of looks like a bear, doesn't he? Like, those books you read as a little kid with the anthropomorphized bears in? He looks like one of those. He's Crooked Hat Bear or something.

One of my goals in life is "Give C.C. a hug," actually. He seems like he'd give good hugs. Sure he's a big, huge, bear-like scary dude. But he'd still probably be a good hugger.

The down side of C.C. is that he is almost assuredly leaving us after the 2008 season, and that's going to break my heart anyway. I don't think I could take him leaving if he were also my boyfriend.


Paul Byrd has started to grow on me a little bit this year. At first I found him a little annoying. Not just because of his poor performance last season, but also he seemed a little too religious for me. Maybe I've chilled out on the Judging The Religious thing, or maybe his personality's just started to come through, but I'm starting to like him all right.

I mean, any dude who challenged Bob Wickman to a fight is all right with me. (No, I never did like Wickman. I don't know why. He just always seemed like a jerk.)

Plus, he's got a pretty sweet nickname around the Indians blogosphere. I mean, seriously. The Cobra? That's an awesome nickname.


Still, I'd feel kind of lame if after being all down on Byrd last year I declared him my boyfriend this year. And he's sort of got the same thing going that Oldberto does: Byrd would, y'know... maybe make a better uncle than a boyfriend. (If The Cobra is your boyfriend, look into joining Paul's Byrdies.)

Can I just declare Byrd my Baseball Uncle right here and right now? 'Cause that'd be pretty cool.

Uncle Cobra. Yep.


Tomorrow night I will be battling traffic in the Cleveland area. I'm going to the Indians game, not Game 6, so it's not as exciting as it could be, but keep your eyes peeled. I've been trying to set up some mobile-to-blog stuff with Blogger, so you might get some live posts. If anything exciting happens, that is.

The rest of Boyfriend Tryouts will be posted after I'm done with finals, so you'll be waiting until sometime next week for those.

Unless I get all procrastinate-y.

Boyfriend Tryouts: The Rejects

So, after I broke up with Fernando last night (and then spent about two hours wondering if I could take it back), it occurred to me that I will need to get a new baseball boyfriend. In real life, sure, you take time off after a break-up. But in baseball, someone new will always catch your love and attention. That's the joy of sports.

Tonight, at Let's Go Tribe, I declared, with the other commenters as my witnesses, that I am looking for a new baseball boyfriend, and I invite all members of the Cleveland Indians to attempt to impress me with their mad skillz.

However, there are a few dudes, no matter their impressive feats over the next few weeks, will find themselves unable to fully get into my good graces in order to become my new boyfriend.

So here, for your perusal, The Rejected, and, where applicable, their reason for being rejected.


First, there's the Dudes Who Can't Help It.



Andy Marte is an okay guy! He could be a perfectly serviceable boyfriend, but, of course, ended up on the DL, and now is stuck in Buffalo for the foreseeable future. Dudes in Triple-A do not make good boyfriends unless the Triple-A team is your baseball team.

Edward Mujica is also a perfectly serviceable reliever. He regularly puts up wacky numbers of innings with no earned runs. I can't really argue with that. The downside? He keeps getting bounced back and forth between the big club and Triple-A. Sorry, kiddo!

And finally, Rafael Perez is up with the big club for now, but how long will that last?


But putting aside dudes who keep getting bounced back and forth between the majors and Triple-A, there are other guys who are just, no way, no how, ending up my baseball boyfriend.

For example, take Mike Koplove. He's a relief pitcher! He's kind of twitchy (although not really Twitchy McXanax levels)! He's kind of short for a RHP. That's appealing, right? Yeah, no. First of all, I don't trust him to stay with the big club all season, and avoid getting DFA'd. Secondly, I just broke up with a dude who can't find the strike zone. I don't need another boyfriend who lacks control over his pitches.

But really, the important thing? I just don't think I can call a dude who looks like he's doing the pee-pee dance every time he's on the mound my boyfriend. I just keep hearing:

Koplove: Are we there yet? I have to goooooo.
Me: Look, you should have gone before we left the bullpen.
Koplove: But I didn't have to go then.


Then, there's Aaron Fultz.

Aaron Fultz is a bum.

No, I have nothing funny to say here. He's a LOOGY who doesn't LOOGY properly. He comes in to face lefties and I expect walks. That's not a boyfriend. That's the guy who keeps asking you out and you keep ducking into the coffeeshop when you see him coming down the street in order to avoid passing him and having to say "Hey."



Roberto Hernandez is an all right guy, I guess, but dudes who are "veteran clubhouse presence" and are literally old enough to be my father do not make for good boyfriends.

I guess I could adopt him as, like, my baseball uncle or something. He seems like he'd be a pretty cool uncle. We could go out for coffee and talk about politics, and he'd... probably try to set me up with his countryman, Fernando Cabrera and BABY I'M SORRY I DIDN'T MEAN IT...

Uh. I mean.


Getting on with the rejected boyfriend prospects, there's also Joe Borowski. At first, I hesitated to put him on the outright reject list. He's the closer! You can't reject the closer! The closer, as we all learned from Major League, is awesome and badass.

I'm rejecting the closer. Mostly because the dude has already taken about three years off my life with his wacky, scary save shenanigans. But he's also on the reject list because I don't trust him to stick around, and he's not endearing enough to make up for his lack of sticking-aroundness.

Sorry, JoBo!


And, finally, what is assuredly the most controversial of my automatic rejections: Trot Nixon.

It's not that I don't appreciate Trot's grit or leadership or... stick-to-it-iveness. It's just that... I dunno. I mean, maybe he'd be my boyfriend if I were a Boston Red Sox fan.

As a non-Red Sox fan, I just sort of feel like I'm intruding on the boyfriend of another.

Also, the dirty hat thing? Kind of gross, dude.

Sometimes you have to help other people's boyfriends.

Stop whatever it is you're doing. Yes, right now.

You know why?

Because Pronk Needs You.

Ang Being Manny

Well, it's after midnight, so I guess I can post this now.



Happy Birthday to me

Dear John...

Dear Fernando,

Tonight I became very cross while watching your outing against the Red Sox. "If you can't find the strike zone, I am breaking up with you," I said, hoping I could threaten you into pitching well.

You proceeded to walk a bunch of dudes, eventually walking in a run.

So, look. I declared you my boyfriend back in 2005, and we had some good times. I still love you. But I think I have to break up with you.

It's not just your performance this year. It's your performance last year, too.

You've been breaking my heart for a while now, and I think this is the only possible thing I can do.

I know you're going to try to win me back, possibly with flowers and strikeouts, and I am in a very vulnerable place right now, and that sort of thing might possibly win me back, but you're really going to have to work at it in order to win back my affections. And you shouldn't expect anything.

Because I can't take this any longer.

Then again, maybe you'll get DFAed and then I wouldn't have had to take it much longer anyway, but let's not think about that, or about how much I will miss you if such a thing happens.

Because right now I am putting my foot down. And I am saying that there is no more "us," Fernando.

I hope you can understand where I'm coming from here.

Sincerely,
Your (ex-)girlfriend.

Git Along Little Dogies: Link Wranglin'

Sports blogging is hard work, y'all. I don't blame people for quitting. In lieu of me actually posting any content of my own, here are some brief comments of mine on some recent blog posts & comment threads I've read.

1. Intentional Over-reactions from fleerdon over at Let's Go Tribe is really the best possible response to last night's poorly umped game against the Red Sox. No serious suggestions allowed, nothing but craziness. I'm all for drunk-dialing Mark Antonetti.

2. Fred at Slacktivist is not a sports blogger, but his post Batterers on the response of sports and sports media to guys who have been accused (or convicted) of abusing their wives is something I've been wanting to say for a while, but haven't been able to bring myself to do. (Writing about serious things is hard! I'm lazy!) The article by Jeff Passan linked by Fred is also worth a read.

The other day, Alex of Cats With Bats told me that apparently the Durham Bulls said they wouldn't take Elijah Dukes if he got sent down. I can really only approve of this.

Then again, I think we all know that sports culture doesn't take domestic violence seriously.

3. DeadSpin linked Yeah, Well We Don't Need You, a response to an article in the New York Times in which an author "divorced" the Yankees.

Look. I am tired of the following:

• Saying certain ladies aren't "real fans" because they wear 1) pink, 2) skirts, 3) high heels. Go look at a sports blog with dudes on it. Watch them make fun of women in the media who are not properly feminine. You are damned if you do or damned if you don't as a female sports fan. Wear what you want to wear and stop judging people for wearing things that make them feel feminine.
• People hating bandwagon fans. I am a bandwagon fan every single post season because the Indians never make it. My options are "root for a team who did" or "don't pay attention to the post season." Aside from that, here's a hint: People like teams that win. One thing I learned from comics fandom is that if fandom is making you depressed or angry or frustrated, maybe it's time to take a break. Losing sports teams are hard to root for, and I do not in any way judge people who choose to stop spending money on a team that isn't making them happy. Sports are supposed to be fun. Hobbies are supposed to be fun.
  

I know my opinions both on pink hats and on people who stop paying attention to teams that aren't winning are not popular opinions, but I think they're well-founded enough, so I'm stickin' to my guns there.



Today I worked on setting up mobile blogging for this blog. I'm not sure what I'll end up using this for, but there you go. Maybe something exciting will happen and I'll be able to catch it on my camera phone. Who knows? Technology is good times.

The Wahoo Chronicles

Yo yo yo, The Cleveland Indians. (Sorry, it's about five o'clock in the morning, which means I've been watching The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air re-runs on Nick at Nite for the last couple hours.)

Look, we need to talk.

There are some dudes on the team for whom I would like to show my support by wearing their names on my body, as is customary. I have already purchased jersey-tee-shirts for the three who have ladies shirts printed up for them at your Team Shops: Grady Sizemore, Travis Hafner, and Victor Martinez. However, as much as I love those dudes, I would like to also purchase shirts in support of: C.C. Sabathia, Ryan Garko, Josh Barfield, Fausto Carmona, and also possibly My Boyfriend, as perhaps a bit of Having His Name on Some Girl's Person might be just the kick in the pants he needs. (A girl can dream, no?)

However, I have a problem.

See, you don't make shirts for those dudes in ladies' sizes. Now, normally, I'd be okay with that. I have worn many a youth XL tee-shirt in my day. However, there is one thing standing in my way, and that thing is this fellow:

If I buy ladies' shirts, I don't run into him. I don't know if this is because he is aesthetically unpleasant, or if ladies are less apt to put up with racist mascots, but this is a fact. However, once I step outside of the ladies' section of a Team Shop, it's Wahoo, Wahoo, everywhere, and I am absolutely not going to buy any article of clothing with Chief Wahoo on it. This is primarily because I would have too much shame to wear it.

Look, I've heard a lot of arguments about how Chief Wahoo isn't racist because "he doesn't look like an actual American Indian!" or "He's happy!" Uh. Those are really arguments better suited to proving that the image is racist, or (in the case of the latter) better suited to saying nothing about the image's politics at all.

Outside of Cleveland, where people are not steeped in the Wahoo imagery from birth, the image is loaded, and has tons of negative connotations. Just look at the response to the choice of including the Indians in this spring's Civil Rights game. The Indians were included because of their historically positive interaction with the African American community, and focus on integration early in the days of integrated baseball teams. However, a number of bloggers were upset because of the perceived racism of the Indians mascot. Chief Wahoo in particular came under fire, as did the name "Indians."

I'm not going to get into the latter, because it's an aside at the moment, but Wahoo is a racially loaded image. I have heard for years now that the Cleveland Front Office is trying to "phase out" the Wahoo image to replace it with the script I logo. However, I'm not seeing a lot of evidence of this outside of what the team wears on the field. If you are not a lady, and you want to buy some Indians garb, you are going to be buying something with some prominent Wahoo on it.

There are a number of people (not just ladies), who dislike Chief Wahoo. There are a number of ladies who would like to buy men's or children's shirts, but are anti-Wahoo, and therefore are unable to do so.

Look, this is the same kind of argument I find myself making when talking about comic books.

Stop making it hard for me to give you money.

Indians vs. Tigers: Round 3

So, apparently, the Indians might be a good team this year. A real life good team. I'm not really sure what to do with this knowledge.

The Indians swept the Tigers, which is good because now they're 2.5 games up on the Tigers, and also because the Indians only have to pull out one win against the Red Sox to have a roadtrip over .500, in spite of dropping two of the three games in Kansas City.

These games have been fun to watch (except for the occasional serious injury to dudes on the Tigers). I've been freaking out and flailing around and just unable to deal with any of it.

I'm not sure who made me happier this game: Garko and his home run, Casey Blake (and his Beard) and their home run, or El Diablo¹ being El Diablo. Really, I am just in love with this entire team right now. All of them. At once.

¹ Fausto Carmona. (source)

Indians vs. Tigers: Round 2

I am loving these games, y'all. And not just because we're winning; although that's nice.

David Dellucci's home run today has exempted him from being called a bum for at least the next couple games. So, if anyone catches me calling Dellucci a bum before the second game of the series with the Red Sox, you're allowed to yell at me.

The liner Garko hit off Grilli's knee was incredibly unfortunate. I always feel bad (because I apparently am all about feeling guilty about things I can't control) when another team sustains an injury or gets a really terrible call from the umps when my team is playing them. Uh. Unless that other team is the White Sox. Or possibly the Yankees, although at this point, it would just be piling on. It does seem that the injury to Grilli is not as terrible as one might have thought upon just seeing the liner. Placido Polanco's oblique spasms also only have him day-to-day, so hopefully for all the Tigers fans out there, he'll be okay soon for you.

The downside about today's game is that the Fox network's blackout rules are really, really stupid, since they only have regional coverage, so people in, say, California who might be transplanted Indians fans can't watch the Indians game on MLB.tv because they're blacked out, even though the game Fox is showing in their area was Cubs vs. Dodgers.

Then again, I think blackout rules in general are dumb, so maybe I shouldn't say anything anyway.

Tomorrow, however, is real life national coverage on ESPN's Sunday night baseball. Be psyched, y'all. Be freakin' psyched.

(And in other news, how far do the Yankees have to fall out of the AL East race before ESPN stops the daily Roger Clemens announcements? "And for the next five minutes, we will discuss the hat Roger Clemens bought at the mall today!")