2012 MLB Season Game Thread: May

[Bobbob1313]

Yes but are you implying there's a difference?

Well, I do think one is a more serious substance, yeah.

Whether addiction to one is more or less severe depends on the person, I guess.

But I think a distinction can be drawn between Hamilton and Mantle because Hamilton actually left the game for his substance abuse issue, whereas Mantle kept playing. Whether it means it was more severe, I don't know, but it certainly impacted his career in a greater fashion.

[MiamiHomer]

I recommend it. It's fun.

I'll check it out.

[Namaste]

Well, I do think one is a more serious substance, yeah.

Whether addiction to one is more or less severe depends on the person, I guess.

But I think a distinction can be drawn between Hamilton and Mantle because Hamilton actually left the game for his substance abuse issue, whereas Mantle kept playing. Whether it means it was more severe, I don't know, but it certainly impacted his career in a greater fashion.

Hamilton getting help (and subsequently leaving the game) when he did is just a sign of the times. Mantle, by all accounts, was a hardcore alcoholic. Cocaine just happens to be illegal but how many lives/families have been destroyed Cocaine vs Alcohol?

[Bobbob1313]

Cocaine just happens to be illegal but how many lives/families have been destroyed Cocaine vs Alcohol?

I think this would be an indication of the alcohol's widespread use, rather than the effects of it.

But we can agree both are bad substances to abuse and probably leave it at that, yes?

[Namaste]

But we can agree both are bad substances to abuse and probably leave it at that, yes?

10-4

[jOOj]

Heroin will fuck you up, Jack!

[MiamiHomer]

[Big Z]

Anyone know why C.J. started back to back games?

[Namaste]

Thunder Dan!!!!!!!!

[Bobbob1313]

Anyone know why C.J. started back to back games?

CJ Wilson started tonight, and threw 22 pitches before the rain delay.

He will start tomorrow.

According to this article, the Rangers thought about moving Jered Weaver up to start on Saturday instead of Sunday, but "he threw a bullpen session on Friday." THE OTHER GUY PITCHED IN A FUCKING GAME ON FRIDAY.

Am I missing something? Weaver would have been pitching on his normal four day's rest if he started tomorrow.

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I tried to pick out the dumbest excerpt possible from this column in the Detroit News, however the whole thing is so laughably awful that I couldn't do it.

http://www.detroitnews.com/article/2...392/1129/rss15

The vogue in baseball these days is to mash all the numbers into some cryptic statistical gumbo such as WAR, WHIP, OPS and VORP, etc. The process is then to use the product that is poured from the blender as the reason the Tigers go belly up against the Seattle Mariners.

As though runs, hits and errors don't amount for much any more. And W's and L's are meaningless parts of the magic formula. And HRs and ERA and RBIs and HBPs are ancient creations from a previous century. Segments of what the Phillies' Cole Hamels has referred to eloquently in a slightly different context as "old baseball."

WAR, for example, means wins above replacement. That translates, I presume, to how many more victories Brandon Inge would mean to the Tigers than Prince Fielder.

VORP stands for value of a replacement player over an entire season. That to me, scratching the gray of my head, could be construed as the opposite of WAR.

WHIP is the statistic to summarize a pitcher's walks and hits surrendered in an inning.

OPS is an amalgam of on-base percentage plus slugging average. It likely could be used to compare Ryan Raburn with Miguel Cabrera as hitters.

Then lovers of baseball are treated to such statistical items as PERA (peripheral earned run average) and DIPS (defense independent pitching statistics).

There is a welter of other statistical hodge-podge to infuse our evening meditations during the commercial breaks on ESPN. But we hope now that the picture is somewhat less cloudy.
Figure this

These new categories fall under the title of Sabermetrics, the figment of several self-anointed geniuses, mostly originated via the vivid imagination of the illustrious Bill James. They were noisily compacted into a best-selling book entitled "Moneyball." The book was scripted into a popular motion picture a year ago, starring Hollywood jock Brad Pitts and celebrating the baseball wizardry of Billy Beane.

Yet now, amid all that claptrap, we are being treated to a Major League Baseball season for the ages. It is the sort of season that grabs any longtime baseball lover with sensational joy of the game, without the mashed numbers.

Imagine, in the first six weeks true baseball lovers have been treated to one perfect game and one game in which a batter struck four home runs.

The perfect game and the four-homer game are two of the rarest feats in baseball.

There have been all of 21 perfect games in the 136-year history of Major League Baseball, and only 19 since 1900. Many of these gems have been pitched by journeymen such as Philip Humber. Humber tossed a perfect game for the White Sox last month. I reckon, attempting this new baseball math, that his WHIP was zero for that particular game. Of course, Humber got shelled in his next start — and nothing much has been heard of him since.

Four home runs in a game is even more precious and uncommon than the perfect game. Josh Hamilton this week became just the 16th player to hit four in a game. (Although watching ESPN with its penchant for overabundant replays it seemed that Hamilton hit 32 home runs in that game.)

Hamilton, of course, is a recognized star for the Rangers. And he sure gave his OPS a boost that night, although he did not receive the rewards Bobby Lowe did for a four-homer game.

Lowe was the first of the 16 hitters who hit four home runs in a game. He delivered this achievement for the Boston Beaneaters in 1894. The Boston fans were so appreciative they littered the field with $160 in silver coins as gifts for Lowe, we are informed by baseball's historical textbooks.

For his part, Hamilton is just hoping to negotiate a new contract with the Rangers.
Old-time baseball, eh?

It is stuff like this that makes baseball a joy for this withered old guy.

No, I never saw Bobby Lowe play. But I did see Cole Hamels pitch for the Phillies the other night and plunk Bryce Harper on national television.

And I did snicker at Hamels' blatant, perhaps courageous confession in the aftermath of the HBP. Welcome to the big leagues, kid!

"I was trying to hit him," Hamels said, quoted in the ton or so of baseball news reports this past week. "So I'm just trying to continue the old baseball because I think some people are trying to get away from it."

The enforcement officials of Bud Selig — who is definitely not old baseball — punished Hamels with a five-game suspension. Naughty, naughty, said Bud's guys, without causing him to forfeit him his next start.

Harper, certainly, has added to the wonders of baseball this season. Just a 19-year-old rookie — a Sports Illustrated cover personality at 16 as sure as if he was wearing a swimsuit — Harper is spicing up baseball. Seen in several TV outings, he is a multi-talented star for the Washington Nationals. He is MLB's future.

And he plays the game the old-fashioned way. He took the deliberate shot in the back from Hamels and ran to first without a grimace.

A few minutes later, on third when Hamels tried to pick a runner off first, Harper stole home. I have no idea into what Sabermetrics category Harper's steal of home fits into.

I don't think there is any such series of initials for old-style baseball savvy.

Then this season has been flavored further by the pitching of Jamie Moyer, the oldest winning pitcher in history. Moyer just happens to be 30 years older than Harper — 49 — and feisty enough to get into a verbal flap with Chipper Jones, who is a tender 40.

Baseball does not thrive on all this Sabermetrics bunkum. It thrives on games and the athletes playing them, and on W's and L's and HRs — and no runs, no hits and no errors and no runners left on base.

As Casey Stengel — who once managed successfully without the benefit of Sabermetrics but with the aid of Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Whitey Ford and Yogi Berra — once said: "You could look it up." Casey was the master of another old-fashioned merging of letters — BS.

[Metes]

As I recall, Hamilton was into coke, heroin, and then crack once he could no longer afford heroin.

I'd say that trumps hardcore boozing in terms of damage to your medulla
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And that Detroit article is pure diarrhea

[Madman81]

Makes you long for the days of FJM

[nny]

Not sure how it's "moronic" of MLB At-Bat to do that but use Sportacular

Because it's box scores. Having to pay to see box scores is fucking stupid. I can create a shortcut app on my iphone that would take me right to MLB.com's homepage and get free boxscores right there.

I mean, gameday, live feeds, clips, things like that being for subscription sure why not. But box scores should not cost 2 dollars a month or whatever it is they're charging.
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The At Bat Lite app is free I think

Doesn't let you look at box scores though, only lets you look at a scoreboard.

[MiamiHomer]

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ha3qN9t4chs[/ame]

[THE_REAL_MIBS]

Because it's box scores. Having to pay to see box scores is fucking stupid. I can create a shortcut app on my iphone that would take me right to MLB.com's homepage and get free boxscores right there.

I mean, gameday, live feeds, clips, things like that being for subscription sure why not. But box scores should not cost 2 dollars a month or whatever it is they're charging.
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Doesn't let you look at box scores though, only lets you look at a scoreboard.

I guess they figured this was a good way to get extra money since the MLB at bat app is free to premium subscribers this year.