Singapore Sox Fan: January 23, 2005

Singapore Sox Fan: January 23, 2005 Archive

Saturday, January 29, 2005

New Sox blogs

Just added to my blogroll these Sox blogs that I've recently discovered: Empyreal Environs (who had this funny piece on Wally supporting Spongebob) and Hoo's on First. Speaking of which, here's the legendary "Who's On First" bit by Abbott and Costello.

Rich Garces found

Apparently he was on the beach. Since the article's in Spanish, I fed it through the Google translator, which gave me:

The ex- relevista of the Red Averages, Richard Garcés, appeared safe and sound in the Guaira, after ten days of disappear, according to the Dazzling Venezuelan newspaper.

Garcés, which according to the Boston Herald it had expressed a preoccupation to be kidnapping in Venezuela when it was in Great Leagues, was sending in Venezuelan Liga with the Navigators of Magallanes, and the last time that their relatives had known of him was after a party in the University Stage of Caracas.

Garcés affirmed when appearing that soon of the party of the 17 of January, it had spent days in the beach in the Central Coast.

The relatives of corpulento throwing had gone to the Division of People Misled of the Police Body of Investigations to denounce the supposed disappearance of the player.

Garcés, that sent with Boston from 1996 to the 2002, had mark of 23-8 and effectiveness of 3,78 with the Red Averages; one inquires that it is in talks with the Orioles to return to the Great Leagues.

Wow, so he went on a 10-day bender on the beach? Bizarre. But endearing.

Japanese pitcher updates

The Sox have apparently signed Denny Tomori, he of the claimed 95mph/152kmh sidearm fastball. He certainly seems like the eccentric sort the Sox quite like, more in the Millar-Damon mold. And he has a nice leg-kick. Some analysis of Tomori here. I wonder if anyone out there saw him pitch in the Pioneer League for Butte?

Also, Hideo Nomo got signed to a minor league contract by the Devil Rays. Good luck to him, I'll never forget watching his 28-up, 27-down 1-hitter on the TV at Lanes and Games in Alewife, back in 2001. Great game.

Sosa to Baltimore

Boy, it looks like the Cubs really wanted to get rid of Sammy Sosa, sending him to the Orioles for Jerry Hairston and prospects. Jerry Hairston! And the Cubs are picking up a lot of Sosa's salary as well. One of the first trades this offseason moving a major hitter from the NL to the AL (Beltran fortunately stayed in the NL, and Delgado went to the NL).

Man, that makes the Orioles even more annoying this season. I don't really mind that the Devil Rays are terrible, since they're uniformly terrible. I do hate that the Orioles play the Sox tough and then roll over for the Yankees.

The Arroyo album

Apparently, Bronson Arroyo is following in Ortiz's footsteps and releasing an album. I guess he's not just a ballplayer... he's an entertainer. (Okay, so I just re-watched "The Office".)

Metropolitan domination

I always enjoy Jayson Stark's column on random facts - this week he does the favour of pointing out that for all the NFL's supposed parity, MLB has had different champions every year since 2000, and in the last 8 years, 16 out of 30 MLB teams have made the LCS, almost identical to the 17 out of 32 NFL teams that have made the conference finals.

Stark also points out the four times a city's teams have won both the Superbowl and World Series in the same calendar year:

2004, of course (Sox and Pats)
1989 (49ers and A's - does the Bay Area count as one city for these trivia purposes? Well, there was no way the Bay Area wasn't going to come away with the World Series title in 1989, earthquake or no earthquake)
1979 (Steelers and Pirates)
1969 (Jets and Mets)

But while the Superbowl is held in January or February, it's the climax of a season that's largely played in the preceding year. So we could go with the following variation that we were talking about in the Boston Sports Media Watch forum: what city has won both the World Series and Superbowl for the same season? In which case the answers would be:

1986 season: New York Mets (ugh) and Giants (for Superbowl XXI, played in 1987)
1979 season: Pittsburgh Pirates and Steelers
1970 season: Baltimore Orioles and Colts

And the Pats again have the chance to add to this list, with a win in Superbowl 39. Okay, I know I should say "XXXIX". But when you have to use these many letters for the Roman numerals, isn't it better to just switch to the Arabic numbers, instead of having something that looks like an obscure adult film category?

Friday, January 28, 2005

More on Garces

The Boston Herald has more on the alleged kidnapping (fingers crossed) of El Guapo:

According to one member of Sox management, Garces had expressed fears of a kidnapping in the past. Each time Garces signed a new contract, he asked that the salary not be released until after his family had left Venezuela for the start of the season.

Thursday, January 27, 2005

1337 hitters

w00t!! Pointed to Progressive Boink's very funny Dugout, which envisions ballplayers instant messaging. A sample:

WinBenSteinsBrenner: Now, before we begin, I have a very important and personal question to ask you.

WinBenSteinsBrenner: WHO'S YOUR DADDY clap clap clapclapclap WHO'S YOUR DADDY clap clap clapclapclap.

Vote4Pedro: I was born in the Dominican Republic to a man named Paulino Martinez.

WinBenSteinsBrenner: I see. Well, that clears THAT up! (Link)

And as for Mientkiewicz going to the Mets for Bladergroen (he of the .992 OPS in Class-A), I can see just the circumstances:

Theo, to himself, at keyboard: Let's see... i before e especially before cz... Mientkiewicz... damnit, it takes forever to type in that guy's name properly.

Minaya, to himself, at keyboard: Bladdergone? Bladergroin? What the? He's only in Single-A and I have to spend all that time trying to get his name right?

Some phone calls later, a trade gets made.

Help a Yankee blog

The house of Larry Mahnken, blogger at Replacement Level Yankees Weblog (one of the Net's few sources of lucid, clear Yankee analysis) and writer at the Hardball Times, has burned down. If you have the means, please do support him by leaving a tip in the tipjar on his site.

Wednesday, January 26, 2005

Pedro on Mientkiewicz and the ball

"I would like to keep the ball, too. ... I think everyone on the team should have gotten a little piece of the ball. He's the only one who noticed to keep the ball. Not even Keith Foulke thought to." (From ESPN)

Kevin Millar has a posse

Random Internet surfing brought me to Number Fifteen, a Kevin Millar fansite. Interesting - I've heard many debates about the relative merits of Millar as a player, but I've never really heard someone gush over him. Well, until now. Fun stuff - even has photos from in-store appearances.

Monday, January 24, 2005

Anna Benson retraction

A Large Regular points out that Anna Benson was only joking about sleeping with all the Mets should she find Kris cheatin':

There's no way I would touch some of those guys with a 10-foot pole. I don't care what Kris did. Some of them are disgusting.

I can hear it now - Pedro and Beltran are going "wait a minute... you can't just take away a promise like that!" It's funny that her reason for not having revenge sex isn't anything to do with moral scruples but just the sheer fact that some ballplayers (or at least some Mets) are disgusting.

And from that same article I learnt that Anna Benson has a reality show coming out. And that she has late-night TV aspirations: "I'm hoping in five years or so I'll have racked up some experience to do something like that." Is it just my sophomoric side that finds it funny that she said "racked"?

Singapore Football(s) Fan

Slight baseball deviation... I finally got to see the Pats on TV! Sadly NFL doesn't have anything like MLB.tv, so those of us over in distant shores have to got to go with whatever's on Monday Night Football (shown Tuesday morning here) and the playoff games. Great job by Brady. Whoever said he was just a dink-and-dunk short-passer? Clearly the best big-game QB in the business. Huge game by Branch - he likes the big stage, methinks, as does Vrabel. But the Harrison return gets my vote for best moment of the game.

And in news from another sport called football - i.e. what Americans call "soccer" - my favourite English Premier League team Everton lost 1-0 to Charlton over the weekend. Fortunately it was a week of weird results, so excepting Charlton no one from 5th place to Fulham (in 13th place) won, and Everton's 4th place remains secure for another week. Phew.

Lefty with a right hook

Y'know, I've been thinking a bit more about Randy Johnson's little Manhattan conniption, and one thing struck me - he used his right hand to block the camera. Funny how no matter how angry pitchers such as RJ or Kevin Brown get, they always know to use the non-pitching hand in moments of anger. I guess that's years of conditioning.

Rich Garces?

Has Rich Garces been kidnapped? I certainly hope not.

The Magallanes Navigator's closer Richard Garcés is missing since last Monday the 17th, when he played as a reinforcement for the Pastora team against the Caracas Leones (Lions).

Juan Miguel Barrios, the player's cousin, informed that Garcés talked to his wife last before the aforementioned game, but that Ms Lisbeth de Garcés tried to contact him afterwards and up until yesterday had not learned anything of his whereabouts.

The well-known player was supposed to return to his house in Maracay once the season was over, but he didn't show up for the last two games, didn't answer his cellphone, and didn't receive his "Comeback of the Year" award, which was finally given to his daughter. (From the Venezuelan Press, translation courtesy of the Reds forum linked above.)

Stay safe, El Guapo.

Oil Can comes back

So Oil Can Boyd wants to make a comeback. It's quite shocking that he's only 45, I really do think of him as belonging to another era completely, forgetting that he retired at the tender age of 31. Clearly he loves Massachusetts: last team he pitched for was Lynn, pitched in an exhibition game in Cambridge last summer, and now he's trying out for Brockton.

Here's a good report on his exhibition game:

When [a] fan politely asked Oil Can to add his John Hancock to the [old Fenway Park] seats, the Can replied, "Brother, let me get three up and three down and I'll come right back and sign your chair." What a fabulous response. Sure enough, the Can (who still throws pretty well for his age) sat down the opposing team, came back to the dugout, and signed the chairs.

Incidentally, "Oil Can" is a great nickname, and the Can's Film Festival (when Boyd racked up hundreds of dollars of late fees for porn movies during spring training) is one of my favourite bits of baseball lore.

Sunday, January 23, 2005

Clemens signs for $18m

So one of the greatest ex-Sox pitchers ever surpasses another in the money stakes: Roger Clemens agrees to pitch for the Astros for $18m, surpassing Pedro Martinez's record $17.5m salary for a pitcher.

I visited the Sports Economist, which made me think about the contract. If Clemens' ultimate goal was to get a contract worth $18m (as opposed to serious hemming and hawing over whether to keep on pitching), a strategy of submitting a ridiculous figure like $22m makes sense. Clemens could've submitted the $18m proposal to an arbitrator and taken the risk that he would get either $18m or $13.5m. Instead, Clemens submits $22m, a figure that can be read either as a reflection of Clemens' self-valuation (7 time Cy Young winner, only made $5m last season) and a ludicrous figure based on irrational logic. The fact that the $22m figure is still within the realms of a plausible award for the arbitrators acts as a a credible threat to the Astros, who don't want to risk going that high.

Contrast this to an $18m proposal by Clemens. An $18m proposal might have caused the Astros to say "wait and see" since they clearly would be happy with either offer (as indicated by the fact that they agreed to this final contract). From Clemens' point of view, he faces the risk that he might end up with $13.5m. By contrast, a $22m offer means the two sides definitely negotiate, and Clemens almost certainly gets the $18m he wants.

The point is this: it makes economic sense for Clemens to act irrationally to a certain degree and submit a figure that was within the realm of the possible but based on non-economic logic (e.g. the symbolism of a uniform number). That figure would serve merely as a signal that he wanted a huge chunk of change to keep on playing. Weirdly enough, a high bid transfers all the risk to the Astros; a low bid means Clemens takes on the risk that he might not pitch even when he wants to.

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