Indulge your inner Beavis

Today is the 100-year anniversary of Merkle's Boner.

Heh.

Those from outside the Chicagoland area (and especially those who can remember the New York baseball Giants) must be pleased to know there's a bar that shares his name in Wrigleyville.

If you really feel like celebrating (and with the Cubs heading towards the playoffs, who wouldnt?), head over to Merkle's Bar and Grill (3516 N. Clark) tonight at 7 p.m. for a special Merkle Day celebration. Let the exorcising begin, Cubs fans.

(Image from: MediaBistro.com)

Shut up and announce

It's no secret that I have a pretty short fuse for a handful of announcers in the big leagues.

I have one major annoyance on each end of the city here in Chicago and a few others spread out across the country who drive me totally nuts when they are the featured team on the Extra Innings package.

If I could clone Vin Scully, I totally would. That man could drop kick a kitten from his spot in the press box and I'd just pretend nothing happened and anxiously wait for the next Sandy Koufax story.

There's an interesting take on the Giants' announcers - Mike Krukow and Duane Kuiper - who I can admit are a little over the top for some people. Call me names if you must, but I can appreciate two guys in a booth who get a little stir crazy in the middle of August. One the sliding scale of major league announcers, these two are certainly not the worst and don't seem to take themselves too seriously.

In an interesting column, Tim Goodman addresses the issue of what happens when the showmanship in the booth overtakes the game itself. The big piece for me is the idea - which seems pretty obvious now - that it's a conscious decision to make yourself the story when you have a feeling that the team will suck.

But the telecasts? Apparently nobody in Giants management sent a memo to their own TV producers to cut the clutter. With the games more interesting (if not always resulting in wins), viewers are instead forced to suffer through a relentless barrage of inane crowd shots. The camera crew loves people eating (what is it with watching people stuff their faces that can be deemed entertaining?) and often goes out of its way to find shots that Krukow is then obligated to talk about.

Thursday's game had two guys with ties walking - just walking - and that apparently demanded two separate shots. And while it's great to show kids at the ballpark, if only to dispel the notion that baseball is boring to the youth of America, Giants camera operators think it necessary to show every kid with a ticket, often focusing on them long after every member of the kid's extended family has seen Junior on the tube.

All told, it's a smart, thoughtful piece and applies to many of the telecasts being produced on a nightly basis. I'm with Goodman - clear out some of the clutter and let the games start standing on their own.

(Image from: collegeinsider.com)

Zito moved to bullpen, feels shame

There's nothing that changes the fundamental makeup of baseball in the Giants' decision to move Barry Zito to the bullpen in light of his 0-6 start and elephantine ERA, but it's pretty shocking to go through the write-ups line by line.

You see a Cy Young award in 2002 and the numbers on his contract and it prompts one double take after another as you work your way down the page. To have that kind of money tied up in the bullpen for a pitcher who has been less than shaky this year is making a bad year for San Francisco even worse.

My question is if he's up for a hazing - having to wear a Hannah Montana backpack filled with gum and snacks - as a newcomer to the San Francisco bullpen.

According to the Sacramento Bee, Zito will be sent to the bullpen to try and regain his composure:

"It's good sometimes just to back off," Bruce Bochy said. "It's happened to a lot of great players, position players and even pitchers. We just felt at this point it's time for him to sit back, miss a start and help us in the pen."

A three-time All-Star and the Opening-Day starter this season, Zito is only the third pitcher since 1956 to go 0-6 before May, joining Texas' Dave Stewart (1984) and Detroit's Mike Maroth (2003).

And honestly, that's what makes the decision mildly surprising - when you're the Opening Day starter who can't get a handle on your pitches it's bad. When you're demoted in April, it's bound to attract some attention.

While it's not an open invitation to panic, it's certainly something else for the Giants' fans to have to wade through this season. On the plus side, there's a better chance to see the team's star pitcher now that he's not shackled to pitching only every fifth start.

(Image from: Associated Press)

Some things never change

Not sure if this is an indictment of baseball fans as a whole, or New York fans, who are always level-headed and fair, but I stumbled across this old image on Shorpy.com today.

It's a shopworn story, but when Fred Snodgrass passed away in 1974 at 86, his obituary mentioned his error in the 1912 World Series against the Red Sox. Read the Wikipedia page for the breakdown and try not thinking about the whole Bartman mess.

Keep this in mind when someone starts the discussion about crazy fans and how they're starting to cross the line. That line has been pretty warped for nearly 100 years now.

Secondly, between the "Snodgrass Muff" and "Merkle's Boner," what the hell was up with our language back then?

Can we just save time and keep the streak alive by adopting the phrase, "Steve Bartman's Painful Erection," and "Bill Bucker's Something About Mary Zipper Incident."

Really, Bill, how'd you get the frank below the beans?

(Image from: VideoDetective.com)

Moving Day for Tejada, Rowland

After years - literally years - of rumors regarding Miguel Tejada getting out of Baltimore, the Orioles pulled the trigger on a deal to send him out of town.

Tejada will join the Houston Astros, with the Orioles getting five players in the swap. According to the Baltimore Sun, which broke the story:

In return for the four-time All-Star, the Orioles will get outfielder Luke Scott, pitchers Matt Albers, Troy Patton and Dennis Sarfate, and third baseman Michael Costanzo.

The Astros will assume the $26 million left on Tejada's contract.

I'd nearly forgotten that Tejada started his career as a member of the Oakland A's until I went back through the story. Look there for more complete breakdowns of

Also switching zip codes is Aaron Rowland, the big silver medal in the Torii Hunter sweepstakes with Hunter and Andruw Jones already in California. Rowland follows suit and signs with the Giants.

The San Francisco Chronicle has the story tagged "Slick-fielding outfielder signs with the Giants" while I would have opted for "Collision-prone outfielder signs with the Giants" but, whatever.

Rowland has reportedly signed a five-year contract with San Francisco, which means Rowland with be 35 when the deal is up. That's assuming he isn't failing neuro-psych exams like an aging quarterback by that point.

(Image from ESPN.com)

Done to death

It's all been said.

All the names have been thrown at him in opposing ballparks all season, the home run king snubbed him on the national stage and his career has become so radioactive that the commissioner of his sport wouldn't go near him as he neared the home run record.

I suppose this is the logical conclusion of this part of Barry Bonds' story, but I'm not taking a great deal of pleasure in the result. If anything, I'm happy for the published indictment to finally shut down the Bonds Fan Club antics of a slice of fans who defended him for years.

Here is the copy of the document - I think the big piece that was missing is here as Point 9.

There, he tested positive for anabolic steroids. Can we just leave him behind now?

Vote, robot, vote!

Quick, who was the starting shortstop for the National League in 1986?

Exactly, who gives a damn after a few years, right?

My initial reaction to Larry Brown Sports' findings that some San Francisco fans might have used technology to their advantage to vote for Bonds up to 50 or 60 times per minute was to make quick, snarky judgments about cheater athletes having cheater fans, but with a little time to cool off, I'm pretty indifferent to the whole situation.

Like most fans, I don't have a great deal of interest about the team, beyond who actually makes the rosters. Truth be told, I get a bigger charge out of the Home Run Derby and Celebrity Softball Game than the All-Star game most years.

For the players, while - say it with me, campers - "It's an honor to be recognized by the fans..." I imagine most of them enjoy having a few days off in the middle of the season to get home, see their families, maybe cut the grass or sell a few grills on eBay.

Aside from cash bonuses that are part of some contracts, there's not a whole lot of incentive to get the players out there. I guess what I'm saying is that if the players don't seem to care, I'm not going to lose a lot of sleep over it.

That's not to say that I believe everyone in the majors is apathetic about the game, but I'd bet that most of the guys who missed out on the voting and the selections are over it by now.

So if it was Bonds' faithful fans or Pat Neshek's that employed the vote-bots to drive the numbers up - as was suggested in the comments section on the Ballhype link - it seems like a few people have all sorts of time on their hands.

Personally, I vote a few times and lose interest and I can't imagine that you wouldn't find odd voting trends for any of the winning players. The then gleefully gloat about how you "duped" MLB by using fake e-mail addresses just makes things that much more pathetic.

That said, I'll be royally pissed off if any of those IP's match up with MLB offices in New York.

(And for anyone who's wondering, the starting SS was Ozzie Smith.)

(Image from: BoingBoing.net)

News out West

Barry Zito to the Giants?

Hmm, didn't see that one coming. Too bad there's not much left on that team at first blush.

I'll have to stew on this a bit, but I'm surprised at this to say the least. Must really love the Bay, huh?

Week's end wrap up

I was really excited Thursday morning after a big night of moves in the hot stove league. Better yet was Steve Phillips chasing Barry Bonds around like Carl Monday, asking who he was talking to, if he was staying with the Giants and if he was jacking it.

Bonds told him his testicles were too far gone to even consider the last option. Not really, but in the television of my mind it was awesome.

The biggest, but least shocking moves were today, with Andy Pettitte going back to the Bronx and bringing rumors of a return of Roger Clemens with him. Bonds is also returning to San Francisco where he'll be hated the least.

Other big moves:

Jason Schmidt - Dodgers - Headed to the Dodgers, the biggest free agent arm (tied with Barry Zito this year) undercuts the Giants and helps Los Angeles which has a much better rotation on paper now (Derek Lowe, Brad Penny, Schmidt, Randy Wolf and any number of arms looking to take over the five spot.)

Being able to beef up your team while draining a division rival is a nice bonus, but these moves put the Dodgers as the early favorites in the NL West next year.

To his credit, Drew has defended himself a bit to the media, but given that it's Boston, this could get ugly in a big way. We'll see what happens, but this could be a train wreck right out of the gates.

Seriously, you can't trust LA, but who else is going to step up? In other words, business as usual in the NL West.

JD Drew and Julio Lugo - Red Sox - Here's what worries me. Five words in 20 years: The Curse of Johnny Damon. Expect JD Drew to get a lot of face time with Joe Buck's kid and AJ Pierzinski if this becomes a story line of my future nightmares.

Bad attitude and injury prone? Where do I sign?

To his credit, he's defended himself to a point, but it's still Boston and it's not out of the realm of possibility that this could be a train wreck out of the gates.

As much as I'm skeptical of Drew, I like the Lugo signing.

Not as much as I'd like Damon and Orlando Cabrera, but still...

(The best part of the Cabrera Era was screaming, "Welcome to the O.C., bitch!" every night.

Ted Lilly - Cubs - Please, oh please can we get at least a half-powered Bronson Arroyo factor here?

He was 15-13 with a 4.31 ERA in 32 games for the Blue Jays last season.

I can't lie, I was awake after I turned off the TV the other night asking over and again if Ted Lilly was worth $10 million per year. My gut reaction is no.

Hope it's worth hospitalizing a GM over, but this deal isn't as exciting as it should have been. Yes, Cubs front office, we get it, you're trying to win now. There's still no need to try and spend 15 years worth of surplus cash in one mediocre off-season for talent.

Mike Piazza - A's - It's about time, huh? Maybe they'll give him Frank Thomas' old locker.

Freddy Garcia - Phillies - I'm with Frankie on this one who sent me an e-mail when this signing was confirmed. In an off-season where Lilly gets $10 million per, the White Sox give away a very, very durable pitcher for peanuts?

I thought this would be a move to bring Aaron Rowland back, but was surprised when he was left out east.

Still waiting to get word back on whether or not Kenny Williams is still a genius. That said, I'm getting a Billy Beane vibe off Willaims still where no matter how ridiculous the signing or free agent drop is, you can't help but wonder what he's up to.

This is a direct turn around from the Williams we were given in Moneyball where he was emasculated and painted as too dumb to grasp the finer points of a simple multi-player swap.

More from Frankie on this subject can be found here.

Joe Borowski - Indians - This guy keeps finding work and he always seemed like a good enough guy, but I can't help but wonder how he keeps signing contracts.

He's never very good, but never very bad, either. I think this is indicative of the season Cleveland can expect next year.

Gil Meche - Royals - Good for you, Royals!

Aren't they cute everyone? Yes, they are! Yes, they are!

Cute little ballclub you got there, KC...

For more of the same, jump over to ESPN.com where Jayson Stark has a similar breakdown, but with, you know... facts and stuff.

The Perfect Storm

Have I mentioned my lack of respect for LaTroy Hawkins lately? How he's become the punchline for nearly all of my struggling reliever/whiplash candidate jokes? How I mused to get a sick feeling whenever he'd enter a game on the North Side and I was always a little disappointed to see him come in because in any video game I'd trade his ass for a bag of used baseballs the first chance I got?

Yeah, I guess it's come up once or twice.

Hawkins signed a new deal today for what ESPN.com is reporting to be one year and an undisclosed sum in - are you ready for it? - Colorado.

Oh, sweet Jesus, this could get ugly quick.

While he had surprisingly good numbers in his last full season in Chicago on the road at Coors Field (the Rockies only mustered batting averages and on-base percentages of .143 against him) things got a little worse when he made the jump to San Francisco where in eight games he allowed an on-base percentage of .500, slugging of .667 and batting average of .333 - it's also worth nothing that he didn't face many batters in this time frame to be fair, seeing only six at-bats - but that's still less than stellar for limited work there.

Looking at his career numbers and taking into account moves from and back to the American League, it appears that Hawkins has probably hit a plateau and is on the downswing for any number of reasons.

His career numbers slimmed down to hit a low point in the year before his acquisition by the Cubs (his ERA shrunk from the eights in limited use in 1995 and 1996 to the two-three-four range before ballooning again in Baltimore last season with a 4.48 ERA in 60 appearances.

So, while a trip back to the NL might help a bit, expect Coors to take that edge off in the mile-high air.

Not quite sure how much he'll help, but at least it's a one-year deal with a mutual option. Keep that in mind, Rockies fans.