Sports Writing

Okay, hands up if you ever thought you’d see a Trot Nixon inside-the-park home run. A stand up one, at that. Liar. What a game. The Sox never let the hands off the throat, just kept pounding Redding and May, the detritus of the NL West, as well as the bullpen. The Yankees have zero rotation now with Brown, Pavano, Wang, and Wright on the DL, so if the bullpen can be pulverised, their climb-back to 2.5 games back can be halted. Nice job by Wells staying in so long.

I’m a bit of a grammar geek, as those of you who also visit my personal blog can probably tell, so Morgan Ensberg has just catapulted into my list of favourite non-Sox players with this comment:

Curt Schilling, not the greatest closer. Was that really the best time to use Curt? Although one game does not a summer make - as someone on SoSH pointed out, Smoltz was rocked hard when he made the transition to closer (and just as hard when he transitioned back). Everybody hurts, some time…

Am excited about Chad Bradford coming in, particularly as he’s been great against righties so far in his MLB career. Good return for Payton, I thought. I love unusual pitches, and Bradford’s down-low sidearmer is a perfect example of that. As I’ve said before, one thing that struck me about the 2004 Sox pitching is that there were a lot of signature pitches, ones which were perhaps the best in the game, at least when they were on - Pedro’s change, Wakefield’s knuckler, Lowe’s sinker, Schilling’s splitter, and Foulke’s circle change. So I’m hoping we’ll see Bradford do his thing.

Bronson Arroyo releases his debut album, Covering the Bases, a collection of 90s cover tunes. Arroyo’s clearly from a generation that hit adolescence in the early 90s - songs like “Plush” were among the first tunes I learnt to play on the guitar, myself. (That chord progression is awesome.) I thought this part of the interview was funny:

(Oops, didn’t realise I never hit “publish” on this post, which means it’s probably a day late and a dollar short… kind of like Manny not getting to the media conference, which I’m sure he was glad to pay $5000 to avoid. Anyway…)

Fay Vincent talks about the loss of the Olympics in baseball, hinting darkly at conspiracies: I wonder whether we can get beyond the stated reasons for the eliminations. The antidoping issue looks like a smoke screen, given baseball’s recent progress in dealing with the steroid plague. We will be told there is limited worldwide interest in the two sports, but how can a serious argument be made that baseball and softball are not as popular as sports with deep Olympic roots like rifle shooting, archery, sculling and Greco-Roman wrestling, whatever that is.

I’m a big supporter of the idea of a Baseball World Cup, and so the idea of holding the Home Run Derby as an international event was awesome to me - it turned what was basically a BP exhibition into a proper contest. I guess I’ve seen how much players care about international matches in football/soccer, and it’s just fun to see that same passion translated today into baseball - the Latin Americans, especially, seemed really into it. The Dominican crew was clearly were rooting for Ortiz, and Bobby Abreu was all, “I’m so proud for my country… I’m so happy to win this trophy for my country”. Genuine excitement rather than platitudes - such great fun. Even some of the commentators seemed to have become converts to the format - the fact is, as long as it matters to the players, that makes them put on a great contest. Jason Bay must be mortified.

The estimable Bob Hohler wrote me a nice e-mail a few days back asking about Damon’s popularity over in these here parts. I guess this quote in the article “Johnny Damon, Superstar” must’ve been what sparked the question:

Yeah, I hate the Orioles. Losing a 4-game series is shite. And Rafael Palmeiro has to be the most nondescript player to have 3000 hits. But oh well, entering the All-Star Break 2 games up in the AL East makes me happy. Catch you on the flip side.

David Schoenfield compiled an all-time worst players lineup - the Sox are represented by Todd Benzinger (and Darren Lewis on the bench). Tony Womack just escapes being on that list thanks to the crappiness of Hal Lanier.

John Halama sent in to pitch in the 7th? That’s basically saying, look, we give up, it’s a scorched earth policy, do as you please, just spare the women and children.

Clement’s gonna be an All-Star: Just six days ago, Red Sox manager Terry Francona was “crushed” and Boston right-hander Matt Clement was “disappointed” because the latter fell short in his bid to make his first All-Star team. As it turns out, the story has a happy ending.

As for the flurry of activity: I’m intrigued by the suggestion that much as Jay Payton’s whining was annoying to hear about, it got him kicked off the team, which was what he wanted - so maybe being an annoyance was really the only way to get Theo to get rid of one of the better fourth outfielders in the league. Payton for Chad Bradford would be a good trade.

I understand calling games because of rain if it’s a blowout, but it’s kind of galling to be down 2 runs in the 7th, well within shouting distance, and have the game called.

Sadly, my country was the site of baseball’s removal from the Olympics: SINGAPORE – Baseball and softball were tossed out of the Olympic program for the 2012 London Games – the first sports cut from the Summer Games in 69 years. The International Olympic Committee then rejected the five sports wanting to get in.

This is the part of the day where I come home, fire up MLB.tv, and take in the day’s game and write with unadulterated joy about Clement’s near-CG, Embree’s save (!), and Scott Podsednik’s utter humiliation of Derek Jeter in the 30th Man Vote.

Really? An intriguing idea, indeed.

Timlin closed out the game today. Which is just as well: closers (usually) don’t inherit runners, which was Timlin’s main weakness as a reliever anyway. And I always figured someone would make a bid for Timlin as a closer, given that he’s definitely done the job well before, albeit back in the 90s. I just didn’t figure it would be the Sox.

Woo! Big London fan myself. If I can be there in 7 years, that’ll be awesome to see. As for the IOC celebrations, things have been crazy around here. Basically traffic’s in town was a mess for a while. Hillary Clinton was apparently a great schmoozer, but the word on the street was that it would be Moscow to go first, followed by New York, followed by Madrid, and then it was a tossup with Paris initially ahead but London gaining ground. Guess the street got it right.