Baseball

The SportsAngle Curse? Mauer hits bump in road

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Fresh off this site proclaiming him the "Baseball LeBron" — the highest praise we can offer — Joe Mauer played on Sunday night in the Twins’ extra-inning loss to the Rangers and had the first 0-for-6 game of his career. He also lost the AL batting lead to Ichiro Suzuki (.363), dropping to a pitiful .358.

Then Monday night, Mauer had a routine night off and collected a pinch-hit single, but his team blew a 12-2 second-inning lead to the A’s and lost, 14-13, on a horrendous call at home plate in the ninth.

Now, the last thing we want to do in the early stages of SportsAngle Version II is to get a reputation like those Madden video games and Sports Illustrated have. (Is it any wonder that SI is struggling big-time right now?)

Look, let’s just consider this a huge coincidence. Mauer’s having an awesome season, and he’s still going to cash in big-time sometime in the next two years, so it’s not like we could have destroyed him like the Madden Curse does. Besides, he was on the cover of SI just a couple of weeks ago, so if he totally drops off the face of the earth, I think we can just blame them.

Of course, right after this, LeBron’s DunkGate kicked off.

So if we find there’s something to this – Lance Armstrong falls off his bike tomorrow or something like that – we may have to go back on hiatus for the greater good of today’s athletes.

Or even better, we’ll limit ourselves to coverage on guys we don’t like – like Shane Victorino.

Words to live by: Albert Belle

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Remember Albert Belle? Prodigious slugger for the Indians and Orioles who was completely and totally insane? You know the guy — he hit 381 homers in 12 years, once almost decapitated Fernando Vina, nailed a heckler in the chest with a baseball, put a GPS in his ex-girlfriend’s car to stalk her, and ran down some kid on Halloween after he egged his house.

After the GPS incident, Belle said, “You didn’t write a story about my Hall of Fame induction. You guys never report the good stuff that I do.” Mind you… Belle’s not in the Hall of Fame. Obviously, this guy’s good for a solid quote.

Belle called the Cleveland Plain Dealer on Monday to talk about how lousy the Indians are now. When asked if he would ever manage the team — which I believe would be a tremendous thing for the sport’s entertainment value — Belle replied, “Unless they got me a lot of new players, I don’t need a headache like that.”

But the real gem of the interview came when it was pointed out that some of Belle’s craziness may be interpreted as “roid rage,” and he pointed out:

“No, I was just an angry black man.”

You know something? Works for me! I think Bonds should have tried this tactic in front of Congress. Hell, maybe Giambi too, just to throw ’em a curveball.

The baseball LeBron? He’s already in the Majors

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Nobody is ever content to just enjoy what they have in sports. It’s always about finding what’s “next.” ESPN has a whole magazine devoted to this every year. Everyone searched for the “Next Jordan” for years and years, until LeBron James came along. Then it almost immediately became about finding the “Next LeBron.”

Of course, other sports had to have LeBrons of their own.  So this year we have Stephen Strasburg, the San Diego State and Team USA mound phenom who was the first pick in this year’s baseball draft. Never mind that Scott Boras is extorting the Nationals for $50 million (!), the team apparently hasn’t even communicated with Strasburg, and no young pitcher is ever even close to a sure bet.

Then we get Sports Illustrated’s cover story on Bryce Harper, some 16-year-old catcher out in Vegas who apparently is like a baseball version of Paul Bunyan. He hits 600-foot homers, throws 96 on the gun, does volunteer work and gets good grades. He sounds like me in high school, except for, well, pretty much all that stuff. We’ll see how it goes.
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Citi of dreams? Depends what you’re looking for

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After my third time at Citi Field (two games and a public workout) on Wednesday, it has become apparent that the first-year ball yard is perfect for the Mets of current vintage. By that I mean, the star of the show is most certainly not the team on the field, which is currently rather unremarkable, but rather the field itself. It’s like PNC Park in Pittsburgh, except it’s not nearly as dire a situation for the Mets.
Toney Douglas and Jordan Hill, potential Mets
At least so far. When you see the picture at right and wonder if new Knicks draft picks Toney Douglas and Jordan Hill feel like having a summer job, you know things are not going well. I mean, that pitch Hill is throwing probably had a better chance of finding the plate than many that Oliver Perez (seven walks) offered up on Wednesday.

There is zero question that at least at this point, the on-field product takes a back seat to the park experience. And to be certain, it’s great for fans. It’s a perfect place to simply hang with friends, drink a beer and sort-of watch a game.

If you’re a baseball traditionalist who scores a game by hand — probably while wearing a derby hat and smoking a cigar — this park was not designed for you. What they had in mind was a place where you can wait on a line for a “Shake Shack” hamburger while watching the game on a screen on the back of the scoreboard. A place where you can get sushi, if you’re so inclined. (I usually am, but not at a ballgame) A place where you can frequent a center-field beer garden — which, despite the flowery name, is indistinguishable from any other beer vendor.

If you simply want to sit and pay close attention to a baseball game, well, nobody’s stopping you. It’s just that in the back of your mind, you know they didn’t make the park for you. Continue Reading →