2004 Major League Baseball Season Discussion (1 Viewer)

[Shane Martin]

The fans are getting prepared for Football season and the Hockey playoffs I guess. They may not win enough games for their new closer to make a hill of beans difference.

It's early but the Cubs are looking pretty good even w/o Mark Prior.

 

[Dennis]

Tampa Bay (tied with Boston), Detroit and Cincinnati are all in first place in their respective divisions while Seattle, Philadelphia and Chicago (Cubs) are all in last, who says there's no parity in baseball?

 

[Casey Trowbridg]

Losing 13-2 to Pittsburgh didn't make them look all that good though. Actually, they'd better hope that they can continue to do reasonably well without Prior as now I read he'll be out until June.

 

[Casey Trowbridg]

The guy that caught the 660 homerun ball decided to give it back to Bonds and the Giants for relatively nothing, well at least compared to what he would've gotten on Ebay. I was watching cold pizza this morning and when they talked about how much some of those balls went for, I had to admit I'd have to think long and hard about what I'd do with something like this, but the guy and his son had no reservations about returning it.
The Giants did hook them up with some cool stuff though, some bats and jerseys autographed by Bonds and Maze, and they'll be at a ceremony Friday where Bonds is presented with the ball.

 

[Patrick Sun]

Maybe Bonds will hook that guy up with some supplements...

Ouch, Maddux got shelled in his Wrigley debut.

 

[Casey Trowbridg]

Anaheim locked Garret Anderson up through 2008 with a 4 year 48 million dollar deal.

 

[Casey Trowbridg]

6...6...1!

 

[Patrick Sun]

If you want to check out Barry Bonds' physique, check out page 8 of the Sporting News (has Emeka Okafor on the cover). He looks like a freakin' big ol' body builder from Venice Beach!

 

[Shane Martin]

Regardless of whether he bulked up or not, I think Barry is a great hitter and one that has gotten better with age. His swing is so compact and tight that its pretty refined for him. He walks alot(on his own accord due to patience) and has a good eye for the ball.

 

[Casey Trowbridg]

You know as I'm watching the Angels Mariners game, I've just got to say that I'm a real big fan of what the new owner of the Angels has done. He's spending money and signing these players that were key to winning the world series a couple of seasons ago to long-term deals, and he's brought in free agents like Vlad Guerrero. He seemed like a pretty humble type of guy when he was in the ESPN booth tonight.

 

[Doug Miller]

Casey --

I was watching the Angels/Mariners game last night too, and let me see I'm NOT a big fan of what the M's management is doing.

We went from the best outfield in baseball to one of the worst by losing Mike Cameron. Sure, Mike couldn't hit, but his glove saved more games than his bat lost. I'm just looking at an organization that let Ibanez go for nothing, only to sign him again a few years later. Same story with Podsednick, let him go for absolutely nothing, he almost wins Rookie of the Year last year. You have Pudge and Vlad as Free Agents, and we make absolutely no play for them even with an extra $8 million from Sasaki's contract and a bunch of contracts expiring next year.

I'm still rooting for my team, but give me a friggin' break. I wish that we had an owner that was half as committed as Moreno, instead of an owner who's content with 3 million fans a year and just missing the playoffs two years in a row, or as they like to say "in position to contend for a championship". My ass.

Doug

 

[Casey Trowbridg]

Yeah when you see an owner like that, and realize that your ownership is clueless it can be a hard pill to swallow. I admire what ownership in Anaheim has done, and wish that my favorite team had an owner like that.

 

[Shane Martin]

They did at one point or am I correct in thinking that the Braves are not owned by Turner anymore?

If he is, then something has changed and I wonder if his ex-wife had something to do with that..

 

[Casey Trowbridg]

No, Turner merged with Time Warner and then they merged with AOL...and Turner's sphere of influence was greatly decreased. He has no say or control over the Atlanta Braves, and I wish he did.
Someone asked him if he could see himself rebuying the team but he said that basically because of the money losses from AOL/Time Warner he didn't have the finances to do it.

 

[Seth Paxton]

Me too. He's like the good version of Big George.

Loved the game in HD too. ESPN HD is wonderful.

Oh, and Vlad is on one of my fantasy teams so HURRAY. He's a very likable player. I would have much rather seen him as a Yankee than Shef or ARod.


Yankee Stadium was great this weekend, but I still stick with Wrigley being cooler, more traditional and classic. But Yankee Stadium does have a lot of great seats despite being such a big park, and I just love getting off the subway and going right into the park, just like in Chicago (and St. Louis as I understand it).



You know Bonds might have juiced, but the dude can still hit and has an incredible eye at the plate. The single he had just before 660 the other day was a shot itself, dead-on contact.

And you know, Conseco and Caminiti are both admitted users and while both did show good power and were bright stars at one point, their window closed very quickly and neither are going to the HOF, while Bonds is going down as one of the very greatest players ever.

Somehow I just have to think that there are more than steroids at work, especially when you see how much pop he even had as a scawny kid, and he does look too thin like a teenager even in his first few seasons. I think he did some form of steroids, but I also think he would have been great despite that. Maybe not 660 great, but perhaps 550, or maybe more SBs instead. But something, and he would still have a lot of those walks I think.

 

[Seth Paxton]

Exactly.

And as I've pointed out countless times, this is how it has ALWAYS BEEN. If anything people got spoiled by the 80s and early 90's, though Oakland had a nice star dynasty there for awhile, as did Toronto.

Long before FAs existed rich teams were still able to buy up stars. I mean Babe Ruth was SOLD to the Yanks for money, not traded for equal player value at a different position.

Hate the Yanks all you want, lord knows I hate the Red Sox, but current payrolls are not the "end of baseball" because if disparity were the end of baseball it sure as hell wouldn't have made it past the 50's. An era that not only featured strong NYC dominance, but also featured teams being moved to new cities for better money, teams folding, etc.

The Yanks are big money because the city is big money and the Yanks are just barely getting back to the dominance that they had in the 40's and 50's, the so-called Golden Era of baseball.


Its just as dumb as saying that steriods and juiced balls are going to ruin the sport, as if the sport was hurt when Babe Ruth suddenly began to DESTROY HR records and led the league by 2 and 3 times as many HRs.

We want statistical comparisons to be available, but Cobb and Gehrig did NOT play in the same kind of statistical era, yet no one ever complained that Ruth's records are illegit because HRs suddenly became so much more frequent. No one says Foxx is a product of his era.

Clearly something (things) changed to create a new style of play and stats in the Ruth/Yanks era, but nobody seems to mind that it changed. While should I mind now that HRs are a bit more common, or that SBs are not currently in vogue?

I don't discount Gibson's stats even though it was a pitcher's era. Bonds exists in a HR friendly era, but he still remains the best of that era, and all the all-time leaders are products of their era. Maybe Mays goes for more HRs in another time, but then he did get to play at a time when Maris and Mantle could both get 50 HR in the same season, and during a span when Aaron could get to 755.

IMO, all we are seeing is that its no longer the 80s, but the 90s-2000s aren't so different from 1931 to me.

 

[Seth Paxton]

No, he's awful and I'm sure glad the Dodgers have him now instead of the Yanks.

His "good" games often feature him scattering a lot of hits, his bad ones (like yesterday) come when it catches up with him. He rarely shows signs of dominating and makes almost every inning into an adventure.

I saw him go against Minny in spring training and he was barely able to keep the lid on things. Most of his starts feel are teetering on the edge of blowing up, or they actually do.

 

[Seth Paxton]

Dude, I was there too. Total travel time from Indianapolis to Yankee Stadium was a bit more than 2 hours though.

What you have to do is take the US Air to NYC flight, switch to a cab to head to Times Square (hotel), then catch the #7 over to Grand Central, and finally switch to the #4 to go uptown to the Bronx.


How about the freaking gas leak after the game was over, or maybe you weren't stuck in the stadium still. They finally opened the garage doors over on the front side (by the bat) to let everyone out.

Killer day for a game though. I think our total food bill ran up toward $60, but we (wife and I) had a couple of beers, dogs (I had 2), peanuts, Crunch n Munch (whats with no Cracker Jack), soda, water. I won't even get into what we spent the day before in the Times Square area Yankee store, but it was worth it to get the wife into some Yanks gear finally.

She really got into it. She almost got tagged by a BP HR. We were standing in the little ledge/room area just behind the lower bleachers, not sure what that area is used for (mabye catering or something) when a ball came right under the balcony, hit the wall just below us where the seats end and bounces straight up by her face. We weren't paying attention at the time so we didn't get the ball, it shot back down into the seats after that. It was pretty funny/cool though, I could have easily snagged it if I had been paying attention.

 

[Casey Trowbridg]

I can't believe I forgot to mention this but the guy that caught homerun ball 660 also caught homerun ball 661. Well, actually he came away with both balls, but still that guy had never gotten a homerun ball before and then walks away with homerun 660-661. He said he's keeping this one since Bonds said 660 was more important to him.

 

[Casey Trowbridg]

Atlanta got a good outing tonight from John Thompson in their victory over the Mets He pitched 8 strong innings, which hopefully means that the bullpen will be well rested just in case.