Rumors for April, 2010
Padres Matt Antonellis and Wade LeBlanc like Nerf basketball
Posted by: | CommentsWhat do two future stars of the San Diego Padres do when they’re not playing baseball? Nerf basketball of course. Check out what Matt Antonelli and Wade LeBlanc are up to during their downtime.
Tornado destroys Roy Oswalts childhood home
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Brian McTaggart of MLB.com says that the childhood home of Houston Astros’ pitcher Roy Oswalt was destroyed. His game worn jerseys were scattered in trees. The 2005 NLCS MVP trophy was broken into pieces.
Luckily Oswalts’ mom, Jean, is alive. She rode out the storm in a closet in the house with their dog Sweetie. Oswalts’ dad, Billy, was on a hunting trip in Missouri and came home to help with the cleanup.
“The biggest thing is mom’s alive,” Oswalt said.
Oswalt used the bulldozer, a Caterpillar D6N XL that Houston Astros owner Drayton McLane awarded him after winning the 2005 pennant, to help in the cleanup. For the time being, Oswalts’ family will stay at his ranch about 30 minutes away.
Stephen Strasburg Rumors: Don't wait until June!
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2009 number one overall draft pick Stephen Strasburg of the Washington Nationals is toying with the Minor Leaguers at Double-A Harrisberg. He pitched five no-hit, no-walk, near perfect innings on Tuesday night (his catcher dropped a third strike that resulted in a base runner). So what’s keeping him from joining the Big League club?
It’s always about the money. By waiting until mid-season to summon Strasburg, it would delay his eligibility for arbitration for another year and thus saving the team potentially millions of dollars in salary.
According to Dave Sheinin of the Washington Post, he’s expected to make a handful of starts at Class AAA Syracuse before the team calls him up around early June.
I really don’t buy this arbitration logic. The Nats are 12-10 and 1 game out of first place in the NL East. This kid could inject new life into this team and potentially win them 5 additional games if they called him up now versus calling him up in June. Every little thing counts in baseball and they need to take advantage of Strasburg now.
PRO Rumors: NL West Postscripts
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Ned Colletti is sure he’s figured out a potential problem with his star player — that a self-satisfied Matt Kemp might be the second coming of Manny Ramirez. Colletti still hasn’t reconciled the pro’s with the con’s on that one. For the record Kemp and his agent responded in kind.
With upper management trying once again to publicly summon better results from his own players, I see Joe Torre taking a worried look around NYC yesterday and thinking horrible things. Horrible, horrible things. The Dodgers’ PR apparatus is big and polished though, so consider them down, but not out.
Back west, Tim Lincecum threw a bunch of really good pitches for nothing. His team then rallied around him to take accountability for a tough loss, after which Pablo Sandoval, Sergio Romo, Dan Runzler, Matt Downs, Waldis Joaquin and Nate Schierholtz went on down to the peninsula to take part in Wednesday’s homecoming night at class-A affiliate San Jose. A less celebrated happening for sure, but perhaps one of greater value.
Roger Clemens mistress talks about relationship with Rocket
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We wrote last month about Roger Clemens mistress, Mindy McCready, and the upcoming release of her sex tape. You can see the original article here.
She had a recent interview with Vivid Entertainment where they asked her if Clemens took his family to the same hotel where she was at. McCready replied, “Oh God! Hell no!”
McCready goes on to say that she didn’t know what kind of relationship Clemens had with his wife. “They didn’t even talk on the phone,” McCready said. She adds that there were, “probably several legal separations” between Clemens and his wife. Because of their separation, McCready believes that Clemens was never really cheating on his wife.
Because of Federal investigators looking into Clemens’ past, McCready said that during her relationship, the Rocket had problems achieving “liftoff” aka erictile dysfunction. It was believed at the time the agents were trying to determine if there was a connection between erectile dysfunction and performance-enhancing drug use, particularly steroids.
Her sex tape is due to hit stores on May 4, and you can see a sneak peak of it courtesy of Fleshbot, but it’s definitely NSFW.
Pittsburgh Pirates fan seeks to get rich by betting against his team
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File this under – Why didn’t I think of that?
Pittsburgh Pirates fan Greg Mercer seems to have given up on the Bucs and decided to make it rich by betting against his team. He plans to bet 162 games on the Pirates. You can click here to see his progress.
For those that aren’t familiar with betting sports, there are number of ways that you can play. Mercer has decided to play the money line and the point (run) spread. In the money line bet, you just pick who wins or loses, and the casino will pay you out based on a predetermined set of odds. In the point spread, how have to hope that a team covers to beats the number of points that have been predetermined.
As of 4/28, Mercer is down $18.84 overall. If he just played the money line and bet against the Pirates he probably would be on the positive, but he got greedy and went with the point spread. Tsk! Tsk!
For the Pittsburgh Pirates fans, you can watch him on his weekly You Tube show by clicking here.
Good luck Ron, on behalf of everybody that has lost money in a game chance, we hope that you become a rich person, even at the expense of your team.
Dodgers GM throws Matt Kemp under the bus
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4/28 21:58: Colletti and Kemp spoke about today’s game about his comments directed at Kemp from the earlier interview. “I told him I didn’t single him out, the same thing I told [the media] earlier,” Colletti said after speaking with Kemp. “We had a five-minute conversation.”
Asked if everything was fine between him and Kemp, Colletti simply said, “It’s fine with me.”
When Kemp was asked about the conversation, he responded, “I ain’t got nothing to say about that.”
Kemp’s agent, former right-handed pitcher Dave Stewart, had a few words to say about the situation. “When it comes time for Matt to arbitrate two years from now, we’re going to look at that situation and do what’s best for Matt,” he said on The Mason and Ireland Show on 710 ESPN Los Angeles. “When it comes time for Matt to be a free agent three years from now, we’re going to look at that situation in the same way as I would with Chad Billingsley, my other client on that ballclub.
Looks like the bridge has been burned.
4/28 13:55: According to the Los Angeles Times, Kemp responded to the Colletti’s comments by saying, “the new deal, that has nothing to do with anything. Of course it’s good to make money, but that’s not why I started playing this game. I started playing this game because I love the game, and I’m going to continue to love this game.’’
“People don’t know what goes on,” Kemp said. “People don’t know what time I show up to the stadium. I’m here, I’m here working, I’m here trying to get ready for the game.
“We work hard. This team works hard. There’s nobody on this team who doesn’t get to the field early to get their work in, watch videos. Everybody’s doing what it takes to win. We’re just not putting it all together right now.”
4/28 11:59: Expressing his displeasure over the team’s performance, Dodger’s GM Ned Colletti said this about one individual on the team, “the baserunning’s below average. The defense is below average. Why is it? Because he got a new deal? I can’t tell you.”
The person that Colletti was referring to was Dodgers’ outfielder Matt Kemp.
Colletti added earlier, “some guys, I guess, think that they’re better than they are. They think the opposition’s just going to roll over and get beat by them. That obviously doesn’t happen.”
These comments came after Los Angeles dropped both games of their doubleheader to the Mets on Tuesday. The team is currently in last place in the NL West with a record of 8-12.
Yankees assistant GM wishes she could take back Obama joke
Posted by: | CommentsAssistant GM Jean Afterman cracked a bad joke in front of President Obama on Monday, and after she said it she immediately knew she shouldn’t have.
As the Yankees were taking a picture with the President, Afterman said, “Do you want to hold it (the World Series trophy)? You might not get another chance.”
According to the New York Post, the President and avid White Sox fan responded by saying “And you wonder why other teams don’t root for you.”
You can see Afterman crack the joke about the 2:01 mark in this Associated Press’ video. She’s the one in the red scarf towards the right-side of the screen.
Afterman said when asked what her thoughts were when the words leaked out. “Within a nanosecond, it was ‘oops.’ My biggest concern is that it would be misinterpreted as a political statement. I am a huge supporter.”
She earlier added, “I just want to say I am a huge supporter of the president, I campaigned for him, voted for him and donated money to his campaign.”
DH to be featured in MLB All Star Game
Posted by: | CommentsTim Lincecum and C.C. Sabathia
won’t have to bring their batting helmets and bats to future All Star Games. Major League Baseball has announced that the designated hitter will be used by both AL and NL teams even if the annual exhibition game is played in a National League park.
It’s presumed that the new DH rule will make the managers’ life easier to use all the players to appease the fans.
The DH, first used in the 1989 Midsummer Classic, has been used in previous All Star Games only when the game was hosted by an American League team. The 2010 All Star Game will be played in July in Anaheim, home of the American League Los Angeles Angels. The 2011 Game will be hosted by the National League Arizona Diamondbacks.
With the new DH rule, the All-Star rosters will be increased by one player to 34, this includes 21 position players and 13 pitchers.
Other rules that have been added to the All Star Game include pitcher eligibility, and the re-entry of position players.
Any pitcher that starts a regular season game the Sunday before will be ineligible to pitch in the All Star Game.
The last change is allowing the managers to each select a position player who will be eligible to re-enter the game if the teams run out of position players because of injuries.
Information from the St. Louis Globe-Democrat was used in this article.
The most hated ballclub – the Cleveland Indians?
Posted by: | CommentsAsk any baseball fan outside of the Bronx, who the most hated team is, and I’ll bet that most of them say the New York Yankees. However, according to the Nielsen Co’s Hatred Index, the Cleveland Indians rank number 1 with the Boston Red Sox right behind them. The Yankees are ranked as the number 5 most hated team in baseball.
Who are the favorites? The San Francisco Giants (4.5) and the Oakland Athletics (4.2) are the most accepting fans according to David Biderman of the Wall Street Journal.
The Hatred Index is an algorithm designed by the Neilson Co., that measures positive and negative reactions on the Internet. The scale is from -5 (most hated) to a positive 5 (most liked). Here’s a sample of the top 10 most hated teams:
