Sports Writing

They’ve been doing a lot of interesting things with vision lately, and the Sporting News reports on performance-enhancing (i.e. tinted) contact lenses, the sort of equivalent of sunglasses for contact lenses… supposed to enhance your ability to pick up the ball in day games. Among the people that have been fitted for the lens are Arroyo, Timlin, Brian Roberts, and Junior Griffey.

I hate come-from-behind losses. Just when things got good against Baez, things went bad. I expected the team to struggle against Kazmir - about the only “bad” game he’s had against the Sox was the one where he was ejected, and even then he had held the Sox hitless till then. But the D-Rays’ relief corps should be something to feast on, and the Sox did just that. Sadly, it seems Eduardo Perez has been on a power binge lately. (Whereas Alex Sanchez appears to have used his PEDs for such stunning displays of power as bunt singles…) Still, good show by Bellhorn today…

If Wakefield wins tonight, he equals Pedro’s and Smoky Joe Wood’s number of wins for the Sox (117). Impressive stuff. Good of the Sox to extend his contract, although the contract structure looks like it benefits the Sox more than Wake - they have the right to keep extending his contract indefinitely? Guess this means he’ll retire a Boston player (something sounds weird about saying “a Red Sock”, and “a Red Sox” just doesn’t cut it).

Meanwhile, my old college won the Baseball Beanpot. Congrats to the team.

Now that the Dodgers are doing so well, maybe it’s time to look at Jeff Kent’s thoughts on how winning causes chemistry, rather than vice-versa: “It all starts on the field. When is the last time you’ve heard of a team with great chemistry that stinks? It’s all about the field.” (Baseball Prospectus)

(Matt Clement can’t get no) run support, it seems, dating from his days in Chicago. Fortunately 1 run was enough today to shut down the birds. I love pitchers’ duels… and I love Wells and Clement shutting down one of the best lineups around.

That looked like an awful, awful injury - I can imagine the men in the crowd crossing their legs in instinctive pain. Good luck to a former Sox superstar.

This is the David Wells the Sox paid to see. And presumably, complaints about his lack of fitness will decrease. One thing I’ve always found interesting about baseball is that you don’t always have to be tremendously fit to be a pro athlete - as long as you can hit your spots, who cares if you look like El Guapo? Pity that the Sox were so good in the top of the 9th - or rather, John Parrish was so bad - that Wells couldn’t go out for the complete game. Weird how that works, hoping that the opposing pitcher is efficient enough so that your own pitcher can get the CG. I suppose fans of other teams will have the same complaint about Matt Clement, who does seem to take his time on the mound.

Foulke, Foulke, Foulke. And while I can see the need for a defensive replacement at first, I really can’t imagine, error-laden games in the sun aside, that Manny would need a defensive replacement. Admittedly, it’s not like Payton can’t hit… but there’s no way the defensive improvement in left makes up for the decrease in hitting quality - especially when Manny was definitely due up.

When the Nats beat the Phillies, do they call that a Philly-buster? Thank you folks, I’ll be here all week!

A while back, I did a post on how my eyesight’s improved to 20-20 thanks to treatment and wondered whether LASIK helps baseball players… William Saletan today asked whether LASIK counts as cheating, but I think the benefits of LASIK may not be that clear-cut for baseball players in the first place. Saletan’s article does have this interesting titbit (okay, tidbit, I’ll humour the American spelling):

Most of my thoughts have already been captured in my earlier post, but just to add - good of Manny to laugh along with the standing ovation for his routine flyball catch. Of course, a couple of monster shots cures many woes.

Must have been someone’s idea of funny, Schilling vs Bush. Or the Bush-League move. Either way, Schilling’s pitch count is scaring me - the Jays have had some really tough ABs. Fortunately, the Sox are creaming the Jays 9-1 as I type this. The Manny home run was epic. Immense shot over the Monster. I think I might have spotted it go by my window at the rate it was going.

Found this nice drawing of Wakefield over at Sons of Leland Sklar, a Taiwanese Sox fan’s blog. Since my home computer doesn’t have the Asian fonts installed, I can’t make out what he’s writing until I post from work, but I did find a fun link to the Anti-Handshake Project, which turns out to be something by Sam of Blue Cats and Red Sox. Once again, things that could have been brought to my attention YESTERDAY!

I like it when Steinbrenner goes off the deep end, both for the idea that it’ll put even more unproductive pressure on the Yankees and for the sheer comedy of the moment. So this statement issued after the Os swept the Yankees (what a change) was fun to see:

Good to see Portland pitching prospect Cla Meredith get a mention in the Globe today, even if they refer to him as Olise (his first name) “There’s one pitcher, [Olise] Meredith, I don’t think batters have gotten the ball in the air yet. He was impressive out there. They may not slow down a whole lot either. They may not go undefeated, but they’re pretty good.” Of Meredith, Francona said, “He’s kind of like a Chad Bradford type, a Byung Hyun Kim type, he throws from pretty far down. We saw him at 90-91 [miles per hour] out there. He’s been between 86-91, catches the ball right on the rubber and is like, ‘OK, let’s go.’ All things point to him being the type of kid who is not scared and has a really good makeup.”

So Tim Wakefield continues his good start to the season and passes Cy Young - of all people - on the all-time Sox K list. Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. Admittedly I couldn’t stay up past the 1st inning (these 2.05 am starts kill me), so I was worried about Wake’s initial jitters…

Over at Salon, King Kaufman has a thoughtful look at whether gay people would be accepted in baseball, and comes out fairly optimistic: he interviews Eric Anderson, an adjunct sociology prof at SUNY-Stony Brook who edited a book on gay athletes (Anderson was also the professor on the “Real Gilligan’s Island”), who says:

Just added links to a host of Sox blogs I had not known about… Kristen over at Basegirl, mr. blackandwhite, SoxFan’s Blog, Soxy Girl, and the GYS Network. Boy, the Sox blogosphere is really buzzing/crowded…

The New York Times looks at how DHEA avoided being placed on the list of controlled steroids. (Quick summary of the Times article, in two words? Orrin Hatch. In five words? Orrin Hatch and Tom Harkin.)