The Grumpy Owl

pic nicked from here

“The D.R. is baseball’s puppy mill. The buscones develop and sometimes feed and house these teenage players, with the intent of selling them to the highest bidder, a major league team willing to fork over thousands, if not millions, of dollars to secure a prospect. As a reward for their work, buscones typically pocket 25% to 50% of the prospect’s signing bonus. Many folks in the Dominican Republic resent being labeled a buscón because of the term’s other connotation: swindler.”

pic nicked from here

“Baseball, which has been played in the D.R. since the late 19th century, glorifies the rags-to-riches tales of so many Dominicans who make it to the majors. But buried beneath these charming yarns are the often cruel, sometimes criminal, ways in which all that Dominican talent gets curated. The absence of a school-based sports system forces teams to lean on buscones like Papiro. These trainees find prospects, sometimes as young as 11 or 12 years old, and tutor them in baseball so they can be signed once they turn 16. Buscones often pull kids out of school — Papiro’s players, for example, attend class once a week — to focus them on baseball. They have huge economic incentives to cheat. Age fraud and performance-enhancing drugs, which in the Dominican Republic can be bought like candy, are rampant. The families of these players see the sport as the only way out of abject poverty.”

“Over the past decade, just 2% of Dominican players who signed with a team have made it to the majors. The country’s roadsides are lined with the failures — those who gave up school to chase a baseball career only never to see a single offer from a big-league club. Baseball has provided many real economic benefits to the Dominican Republic, plus immeasurable psychic delights to its citizens. But with these benefits comes a great social cost. “It borders on child exploitation when you’re a dream merchant,” says Charles Farrell, an American based in the D.R. who is trying to start a baseball-centric high school there, “and not delivering the dream.”

–Baseball Dreams: Striking Out in the Dominican Republic – Time Magazine

Tags: baseball, D.R., Dominican Republic, exploitation, kids

Tags: baseball, baseball boogie, dodgers

Tags: fielding tips, ozzie smith, shortstop, the baseball bunch, the wizard of oz

pic nicked from here

But, at the same time, looking at those hats, I can’t decide if baseball needs less racism or more.

Tags: cleveland indians, rascism

It’s the ninth inning and your team has a lead so slim it’s anorexic.  The bad guys have the bases loaded and their best hitter at the plate.   He’s been tearing the cover off the ball all night and looks ready to do it again.  This is exactly the sort of situation he thrives in.  There’s only one guy you can turn to: Your closer.

The closer is one of the most glamorous jobs in baseball.  It’s also deceptively simple.  You get the last out of the game with a lead so small that other team can tie or win.  Doing this is called a save. Closers are usually brought in during the final inning, under all the stress and they usually need three outs.  Seems simple.  It’s not.

It takes a particular sort of headcase to be a closer.  If you see them come into a game where they have a big lead, more often than not, you’ll see them destroy that big lead and ramp up the pressure to the level they feel comfortable at.    These are deep sea fish.  They breathe where others are crushed and explode where others breathe.

Kevin Gregg of the Blue Jays is a lot of things.  He is not a closer.

If you look at his numbers you would be deceived.  He is fourth in the American League in saves.  He’s only blown a few.  Even if the Jays had one of the best closers in the game, they might –at best– only have a few more wins.

What those numbers don’t tell you is the amount of nail-biting fuckduggery it’s taken for Gregg to get those saves.  They don’t tell you how bad he looks under pressure, the lack of fear he inspires and just how quickly he goes to pieces.  Those numbers don’t tell you that Kevin Gregg has been very lucky.

The first game back from the All Star Break, he saved a game on only six pitches and was aided by some remarkable defense from the new shortstop.  That put me in a good mood and I figured: Hey it’s the second half of the ball season.  A fresh start. What Gregg did in Tampa was complete bullshit but his numbers are fairly decent and he’s gotten results.  Let’s give him another shake.

It took him one more game to blow all my goodwill right out the hatch while making me regret my moment of hometown kindness.  And not because he simply pitched a bad game.  I expect that to sometimes happen.  But because he is SUCH A FAT HEADED PRICK when he does it.

Last night, he pitched against the Baltimore Orioles.  The worst team in baseball.  The worst team that baseball has seen for a while.  They’re so bad, they’re often referred to as the OriLOLs.  But the Jays had been taken to the woodshed by the OriLOLs starter, Guthrie and entered the ninth, holding onto a 3-2 lead.  And here comes Kevin Gregg.

He struck out the first batter he faced on three pitches.  Against the next batter, he got a bad call.  A pitch that had been called a strike all night was suddenly no longer a strike.  That’s it, I thought, Gregg is going to fall apart.  And he did.  a closer should never walk anyone and Gregg walked the bases loaded, getting one more out in the process.  (Scott Moore flied out, which shows you just how bad the OriLOLs are.  A sensible team would not be swinging at anything Gregg threw until he proved he could throw something over the plate.)  Against the very worst team in baseball, the closer had walked the bases loaded.  He was imploding.  You could see it in his body language, his face and his pitches.  Kevin Gregg was out of his depth.

Now, it did look like the umpire was squeezed him — not calling strikes that had been strikes all night.  I can’t blame the ump for doing that.  Gregg had almost attacked an umpire in Tampa.  You do not make friends with bullshit like that.  But a closer should have good enough stuff to throw it over the plate against Baltimore and still get outs.  Gregg does not.  He would not go near the plate.  He was pitching, not with the aggression that speaks well of a closer, but with fear.  The terror of being hit.  By Baltimore!

Bases loaded, two outs, bottom of the ninth.  One run lead.

And Cito Gaston did the right thing.  He fired Kevin Gregg.

pic nicked from here

He walked to the mound.  Kevin Gregg sees him coming and you can read his lips:  ”You got to be fucking kidding me.”

Cito was not kidding.  Gregg was pulled.  Instead of reacting how one is supposed to in that situation, quietly, walking to the dugout with your head down and just praying that the next guy gets you out of the mess you created, Kevin Gregg threw a tantrum.  In front of millions of baseball fans, watching the highlights on ESPN, he told his manager to go fuck himself and stormed off.

You don’t often see Cito get pissed off.  Whether you think it’s a good or bad thing, you can’t debate about how laid back the man is.  He might actually be in a coma.  And seeing Cito get angry on that bench, seeing the looks he gave Kevin Gregg, I was scared right through my television.   You do not tell your manager to go fuck himself you definitely do not do it on the mound after YOU fucked up and YOU walked the bases loaded and YOU were going to lose the whole hard-fought game.  You sit the fuck down and you shut the fuck up.

Shawn Camp came in.  He threw a ball way wide of the plate.  The ump called it a strike.  That’s the ump’s way of saying: “Fuck you Kevin Gregg.”  Not even Camp could believe he got that call. He got the final out on a ground ball and the Jays won the game.  Gregg fired, Camp hired.  I don’t care what anyone says about Gregg still having his job.  He does not. The closer is more than a title.  He is the guy you go to close the game.  Last night, that was Shawn camp.  And he deserves it.

As the team was giving each other high fives, Cito says to Gregg: “I want to see you in my office.”  They spent twenty minutes in there after the game.  No one knows what was said but I think we can all guess.  I’m just hoping that Cito does not play the nice guy for once.  He is known for holding a grudge.  And God help me, I want him to hold one here.

Because, Kevin Gregg, I’ve said it before: If you can’t pitch right, you can still act right.

Tags: baltimore, baseball, blue jays, cito gaston, kevin gregg

It’s a subject I’ve often gone on about here:  That access is used as bludgeon and bait to control media opinion.

It happens with big subjects, it happens with little ones but I was surprised to see it happen in baseball.

Mike Wilner, who hosts the Fan 590′s post-game, baseball call in show was suspended this weekend after having a run in with Blue Jays manager Cito Gaston.  Not a bad or even unprofessional run in.  He didn’t get drunk and kick Cito in the nuts.

During a press conference, he just asked some legitimate questions about Cito’s handling of the bullpen (something a lot of people were doing) and then blogged about what he thought were unsatisfactory answers. The Fan 590, who is, like the Blue Jays, owned by Rogers, then suspended Wilner for the weekend.  A weekend where the beloved Jays took on the dread Yankees.

In other words, an important weekend.

It’s unclear who made this choice.  Cito denies any involvement and I believe him.  Says the skipper: “I didn’t go to anyone.  I didn’t think it was that bad anyway. . .  Who am I going to complain to, his boss? I’m not going to go calling up his boss.  I’ve gone through far worse [questioning] than that.”  No one else from Rogers wants to comment.

I can’t imagine why.

Thank God that the blogosphere is full of varied opinion.

I do know that, as a fan, I feel like Rogers got drunk and kicked me in the nuts.  I wanted to hear the Wilner postgame show after those Yankee games.  In the first, which I attended, we pounded the hated AJ Burnett, in the second the bullpen (the management of which  Wilner was questioning) held the Yankees down for 14 innings and in the third that same bullpen melted down and we lost late in the game.

That’s baseball: It’ll prove you right one day then wrong the next.  Then do it all again backwards.

In such an endeavour disagreements are the norm.  I, for example, often disagree with Wilner and have the somewhat unpopular opinion that Cito is a good manager. I like his method and approve of his results.  Though I often disagree with Wilner, I enjoy his perspective; though I often agree with Cito, I often hate his results.  It’s baseball.  That’s to be expected.

Fandom is about differing perspectives.  Any Yankee fan will have a totally different take on this weekend’s series than any Blue Jays fan.  Reporting the game is, like talking about it, a question of second guessing choices.  Football has its own term for the phenomena:  “Monday Morning Quarterback.”  It’s the same with baseball or any other strategy based game.

Managers can handle that.  Apparently someone in the publicity department can’t.

This is not about whether or not you find Wilner abrasive nor is it about the managerial acumen of Cito Gaston.  It’s about living in a world where a sports reporter asking a baseball manager tough questions is considered out of line; where people lose their jobs for doing them.  It’s like some people saw The Wire and thought: That’s interesting, how can we make it worse?

Some even seek to ban manager umpire arguments.

Like seriously – if you can’t criticize a baseball manager for an eccentric series of decisions resulting in a dramatic 9th inning loss without being suspended, just who the fuck can you criticize?  The Prime Minister?  A Rogers sponsor?  Anyone?

I love the game because of its ability to clarify and analogize philosophical points.  It is a common wealth of myth that every fan can draw on and it provides a language that people from all sorts of backgrounds can speak.   Unlike the arts, there are concrete facts that every opinion must be based on. Your opinions on a player’s quality might differ but the OPS is agreed.

Just that simple fact makes it more honest than politics or art.

I’ve been on the internet for years and have made factual errors on plenty of subjects.  None have embarrassed me more than the ones I’ve made about baseball. Just the other day on twitter I went off about this year’s all star game being in Arizona, when it is, in fact in Anaheim.  When I realized that, I actually blushed.  A rare occurrence.

But when I’m wrong on facts, I see little point in denying people whoa re right access.  When my opinion is contested, I don’t mind.  People have a right to think differently than I do and to ask questions.  Like Cito, I have a right to brush them off.  But no one should be suspended for asking those questions, especially if that’s what they’re paid to do. I wish Rogers and everyone else with a publicity department felt the same.  Because a world where PR writes the script is just a bullshit world.

In this Wilner situation, baseball, once again,acts as mirror.  And I love a mirror.  Especially when it shows something bad.  Why even have a mirror if you can’t see that your tie is improperly dimpled before you leave the house?  And make no mistake, according to this mirror, our shirt is inside out.   Reporters are being suspended for reporting.  Like OPS, that is incontestable.

We have a duty to protest that world wherever and whenever we see it.  No subject is too trivial.  If we can’t even protect the trivial subjects, there’s no way we can protect the important ones.  In politics, the arts and even sport, boos must be heard and questions asked.  Especially the ones that go against the script.  Mike Wilner needs his job back.

His only crime was doing it.

Tags: blue jays, fan 590, mike wilner, rogers, suspension

I know we beat the Yankees today but FUCK YOU ARIZONA!!!  There’s no way that you should have the All Star game.  If MLB had any balls at all, you wouldn’t.  Races that play together win together.  So you can take all that white supremacist shit and shove it up your ass.  Cheers.

Tags: aaron hill, arizona, baseball, blue jays, fred lewis

In life there’s two sorts of people:  Those who think there’s two sorts of people and those who don’t.  I’ve never thought there’s only two sorts of people.  I’m not even sure that people can be put into “sorts.”  There’s people and there’s the positions they play.

When I’m in one of those “two sorts of” moods, I just forget the people and think about positions.  There’s all sorts of people playing plenty of different positions.  For the sake of this post, I’m going to divide those into two primary ones: Pitching and hitting.

The pitcher is trying to get an out.  The hitter is trying to get on base.

Sounds simple.

Pitchers are the critics, the writers, those who take what someone else does, tries to find the holes and strike them out.  They want to prevent you from getting a hit.  They want to make you look foolish.  But, without them, there’d be no ball to hit in the first place.

Hitters are those who are trying to get ahead.  They want to get a nice fat pitch and knock it out of the park.  Be a success.  Reach base, stay in the game.   They never make the pitcher look bad so much as they make themselves look good.

It’s zero sum.  Pitcher wins or hitter wins.  No grey area.

Philosophically, I’ve always identified more with pitchers than with hitters.  But because life is National League rules, pitchers do have to sometimes hit.  In which case, I’m prone to striking out, hurting myself or laying down a sacrifice bunt.

And just pray I don’t have to run the bases.

But, basically, I’m a pitcher and we’re not paid to hit.  You don’t come to The Grumpy Owl to see me paint a picture.  You come here to see me call bullshit on one. You waste whole minutes of your life watching my high fastball, my sinking changeup, my unexpected curve and, on rare occasions, that slow, tantalizing knuckler.

You know that one.  The one that looks so good that you just gotta swing at it.  Then it either vanishes or you take it out of the yard.  That one.

Since I view life through this perverse, allegorical lens, I spend some time thinking about my favourite pitchers and what I can learn from them.  From Halladay, I learn routine; From Henke, sudden side arming;  From Dizzy Dean, aggression; From all of them, the importance of keeping the opponent off-balance.  Of unpredictability.

But the most valuable lesson that I’ve ever learned from pitchers is this:  It’s not what you do on your good days, it’s what you do on your bad days.

Roy Halladay on a good day.

The other day, Halladay went out and threw a perfect game.  An amazing, magical feat.  But that’s not what makes him my favourite.  It’s what he does when he’s not perfect.  It’s what he does when it all goes wrong and nothing is working.  He battles.

Roy Halladay on a bad day.

Some people will look to the dugout on those days.  Some, knowing they just don’t have it and are going to lose, will pray for the manager to come out and rescue them.

Others want to stay in and keep fighting.

I see a lot of that in the Jays’ youngster Rickey Romero.  It’s great when he gets the complete game victories but it’s even better to see him go on that mound with nothing.  Because, when that happens, you see why he does well when he has something.  He can have his worst outting of the season and still manage to last five long innings.  He wanted his bullpen to get rest.  That’s learning from Roy.

And that’s pitching.  It won’t show up in any stats either.

That’s why a guy like Brian Tallet gets hated on by fans and loved by Cito.  As a starting pitcher, he usually has nothing.  But when you have to field a pitcher with nothing, he’s the one you want out there.  He’ll give up an upper deck homerun on one pitch then turn around and throw the same one to the next guy.  It’s probably all he has.

Brian Tallet's socks.

pic nicked from here

I find that relatable.  Sometimes, you just gotta stand on the mound, throwing the same shit and hoping for the best.  Sometimes it leaves the yard, sometimes it gets an out.   And it seems like the more nothing Tallet has, the more outs he gets.

Tonight, fresh from the disabled list and a disastrous stint in the minors , he pitched a great game against the best team in baseball.  He did it when no one really wanted him to be the starter.  He lasted 5.2 innings, never gave up a run and did all that with Brian Tallet stuff.

I like that.

What I don’t like is the shit that Kevin Gregg pulled when asked to finish the game for him   He’s a closing pitcher and, for my baseball averse readers, that means he has one very simple and very difficult job.  He needs to get 3 outs when it counts the most.  At the end of the game with the game on the line.

Closers are a strange breed.  They thrive under stress.   They challenge hitters directly.  There can’t be a lot of fooling around and a lot of trickery.  It’s their best stuff against the hitter’s best swing.  There’s no tickling batters to death.  You come right at them and they do what they can.  It’s zero sum.

Closers throw strikeouts and they give up homeruns.

They do not walk hitters.  Even if they have nothing working, they better throw that nothing right over the plate.  Kevin Gregg walked five hitters.  He made an error, threw a ball into the outfield, and, basically, gave away base after base.  When he finally threw his nothing over the plate, it sent everyone he’d given bases to, home.

On his own way home, Gregg said something to the umpire that got him tossed out of a game he was already pulled from.  That’s when he had to be restrained.

That is not how you lose.

And it’s not how you win either.  You fight the batter, not the umpire.

I would have rather seen Gregg give up back to back to back homeruns.  And I certainly would have rather seen Gregg just sit down when he blew the save.   That tantrum was a childish and grotesque display by a pitcher who did not earn the right to one.  What happened in that inning was no one’s fault but his.  He needs to accept that.

But he still managed to teach a lesson:  If you can’t pitch right, you can still act right.

Too bad he didn’t.

And for that, I’d say it’s time to give one of the kids a shot.  It is a rebuilding year and I am a David Purcey fan.   And I remember him doing some damage to a pretty good Tampa Bay team not so long ago.  Wonder if he can do some more.

There’s one way to find out.

Tags: baseball, blue jays, brian tallet, kevin gregg

VIA DJF

“Chicks who dig home runs aren’t the ones who appeal to me,” he said. “I think there’s sexiness in infield hits because they require technique. I’d rather impress the chicks with my technique than with my brute strength. Then, every now and then, just to show I can do that, too, I might flirt a little by hitting one out.”

–Ichiro

Why You Should Go to the Ballgame (In Case You Forgot)

“If my uniform doesn’t get dirty, I haven’t done anything in the baseball game.”

–Rickey Henderson

“I don’t mind getting beaten, but I hate to lose.”

–Reggie Jackson

There are few things in life as rare and beautiful as a no hitter. In the whole history of Blue Jays baseball, only one has been thrown by a Blue Jay.  It’s not something you see everyday.  As a matter of fact, I’ve never seen one.

It’s a magical moment. The only fellow who ever threw a Blue jays no hitter, Dave Steib, caught the homerun ball that broke up Halladay’s no hitter with two outs in the ninth.  Tell me that’s not magic and I’ll tell you you’re blind.

Because it’s magic, there are some weird rules about the whole thing.  Superstition is the government in this territory.  It’s the only thing that makes sense.

While it’s happening, the words “no hitter” must never be mentioned by anyone lest speaking its name jinx it.  If you look at the bench, late into a no-no, you’ll see the pitcher sitting by himself, shunned by his peers and alone with his thoughts.  At the apex of achievement, there is only solitude.

Whatever a pitcher might do with the rest of his career is irrelevant.  Throwing a no-hitter makes you one of the greats.  If you were a hunter, this is like shooting a unicorn.  Who cares how many rabbits you killed?  You once shot a unicorn!

The magic governing the no-hitter is very clear for the team throwing it.  For the other team, it’s a bit shakier.  There are certain unwritten rules.

You should probably never bunt to break up a no-hitter.  I say probably because I think it’s okay to bunt to break up a no-no.  A bunt is, after all, a type of hit.  And it’s not the job of the opposing team to ensure the no-hitter.  Their job is getting hits.  What makes a no-hitter special in the first place is that it has to be earned.

But what is not okay, what can never be okay, what is just plain fucking wrong, is what AJ Pierzynski did to Rickey Romero in the eighth inning of a no-hitter.

He pretended to be hit by a pitch to reach base.

The next batter broke up the no hitter with a home-run.

Although he pitched one hell of a game, this is how the very young Rickey Romero looked after losing his no hit bid.  And why not?  He may never do that again.

No one knows or will ever know if Romero would have thrown that no-hitter if Pierzynski had not of cheated his way to first.  Maybe Pierzynski would have broken it up himself with a single up the middle.  We’ll never know.  We were cheated out of knowing that.  And the man who did it is just plain fucking scum.

He disrespected the game, the pitcher and himself.

It is just not the sort of thing that you do.  Ever. You don’t fuck around with a pitcher throwing a no-hitter.  You beat him or he beats you.  You play the game, you don’t play the umpire.    If you want to be hit by a pitch, you step into one.  You earn your base and you take your medicine.

And when you don’t, the umpires should make you.

But umpires miss calls and make mistakes.   Like cops and judges, they’re just humans in serious looking uniforms.  I can forgive their fallibility but not their stupidity.  Why an umpire would believe any acting job sold to them by AJ Pierzynski, who has a history of this bullshit, is beyond me.

The law failed.

It was time for frontier justice. In baseball, that means Mr. Pierzynski gets hit by a pitch.  Next game, first at bat, first pitch.  You hit the fucker and watch him drop.

This may sound savage but it used to be a big part of baseball.  There were a species of pitchers called headhunters who acted like the enforcers on hockey teams.  If you tried any bullshit up to and through the 1980s, you would get yourself hurt.  And some bullshit like this?  You might have a hard time stepping into the box against anyone for a while.

I don’t know.  I’ve never heard of anyone trying some bullshit like this.

Cheating is a part of baseball.  So is hard-nosed play.  Those things are baseball.

Ty Cobb, who was baseball’s most notorious villain, often sharpening his cleats to use them on defenders when he wasn’t attacking black people for “disrespecting” him in elevators, once said: “Baseball is a red-blooded sport for red-blooded men.  It’s no pink tea, and mollycoddles had better stay out.  It’s a struggle for supremacy, a survival of the fittest.”

But those who would invoke the Cobb defence should remember that he was a Nazi son of a bitch and then reflect on something else he said:  “I may have been fierce but never low or underhand.”

Ty Cobb would have reached base by reaching base.  If he had to knock the shit out of the first baseman, mess with the pitcher’s mind or put his face in front of a fastball to get that base, that’s exactly what he would have done.   Would he pretend to be hit?

Not fucking likely.  That, my friends, is pink tea.

But that’s what AJ Pureshitski did.  It’s what he’s known for doing.  It’s why things like this happen to him and everyone cheers when they do.

In baseball, as if life, you can’t prevent assholes from cheating you.  It will happen.  Even though they should know better, no matter what incredible magic they’re cheating you out of, assholes will come along and they will cheat you.

But in baseball, unlike in life, these assholes have to step into the box against your team tomorrow.  And that’s when your team has to be there for you.

A.J. Pierzynski pulled his act on a Tuesday night.  I heard about it on twitter while at work.  He stepped back into the box on Wednesday.

The wife and I attended the game.  We were amongst the very few who did. Wednesday’s game was an all time low for attendance at the Skydome.

There’s something to be said for a quiet stadium.  You can hear every heckle and cheer.  The game is as intimate as anything at Christie Pitts.  It’s like you’re hanging out with the players and no one is really a stranger.  You’re part of a very small and dedicated crowd.  The people at this game know baseball and love it.

We got ourselves some good seats.  Right behind homeplate.  Beside us, with stopwatch and stack of papers, sat a scout for the New York Mets. (He took the above picture.)  In front of us was another from team unknown.

We were in a well of professional baseball knowledge, radar guns, stopwatches and charts.  This was a real treat.  For while my love of the Blue Jays is of the heart, my love of the game is of the brain.

My love of ballpark footlongs, however, has to do with my belly.

Pitching for Jays was the hard-throwing Brandon Morrow.  A frustrating guy to watch.  His fastball is in the mid to high nineties, his curve-ball can be devastating and his change up, well, his changeup needs work.  So does his control.  He’s not known for throwing a lot of strikes.

But, far as I was concerned, he only needed to throw one.  Right into the back of Pierzynski.  A straight ahead, no nonsense 96mph sphere launched from 60 feet away.  Something that would hurt.  Something to give A.J. something to cry about.  I wanted to see blood on the diamond.  Wanted to see if A.J. bleeds red.

Justice had to be served.

When A.J. Stepped into the box, there were boos and heckles aplenty.  Everyone thought they knew what was coming.  Brandon Morrow, who looked like a nervous kid, came set on the mound.  He wound up and threw. Up and in.

A brushback but not a bean.

Not good enough.

“ALMOST!” I shouted.

And that was it.  The moment was over.  A.J. never got his comeuppance.  Not even when the Blue Jays were down by ten runs and the game was lost, did they hit him.  They walked him.  They pitched around him.  With an open base and the soft hitting Omar Vizquel on deck, they pitched to him and he got an RBI.

No justice was served.

Brandon Morrow with one pitch could have become a fan favourite.  He could have sent a direct, clear and much needed message to the American League about what happens when you fuck with the Blue Jays.  He could have shown some character.  He did none of that.  He mollycoddled a scumbag.

Yet, we stayed and watched the whole 11-1 drubbing of our team.   Baseball isn’t always about winning, you see.  It’s about philosophy, the crack of the bat and the double play.  These are all uniquely beautiful things.  The score is just the score.

And I was happy we stayed because the most interesting lesson about baseball, games and the people who play them came last.  In defeat, it often does.

As A.J. moved towards his dugout, late in the game, after dealing with a crowd who wanted to see his blood, he did a very strange and sweet little thing.  He gently tossed a ball towards a kid in the stands, giving the child a souvenir to treasure and making a lifelong fan out of him. It made me smile.

That A.J. guy’s not all bad, I thought. But that kid should have thrown that ball right back at him.  Because A.J. is pretty fucking bad and even Hitler liked dogs.

Its not an excuse.

Tags: A.j. piersynski, bean, blue jays, no hitter, rickey romero, toronto

“It helps if the hitter thinks you’re a little crazy.”

–Nolan Ryan