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Paradise Lost - The 1994 Season (click to view website)
YOU are the proprietor, too. You get to enjoy the relaunch joy and the Opening Day craziness that comes with it.
Are you enjoying the relaunch? Caught up in the craziness? Don't you just feel the love from MLBlogs?
April Fools Day!
Here at Some Ballyard, we don't get fooled again. We've seen enough. MLBlogs has demonstrated one too many times that it is not suitable for serious blogging. We will keep Some Ballyard up for some trivial purposes, but we will be blogging in earnest at Some Clubhouse. Do drop in and pay us a visit!
For those of you who are hanging around, we'll still come by your blogs. Best of luck (you are going to need it), and see you in the bigger blogosphere!
Tata!
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You gotta believe ;-)
]]>Check it out here.
]]>Patterson had an outstanding 2005, but, if you remember, that was an odd year. The Nats in their new Washington home were hotly competitive, at least until Atlanta, in that final dynastic breath, handed Screech his bird butt. Since then Patterson has embodied the Nats misfortunes, starting as an ace every year until revealing himself to be a joker.
No huge knock on Patterson, per se. He is a middling middle-to-late starter on a middling team. But he came to represent something lackadaisical about the Nats, that attitude that they were going to lose anyway so it didn't really matter. As The Prince of New York notes in his 2008 Baseball Guide, that isn't the attitude manager Manny Acta is instilling in his team as evidenced by Washington playing like they were still in contention late last year versus the supposed to be in contention Mets. I suspect his release was meant to be a wakeup call to any other sleepy heads in D.C.
Keep an eye on this team. They are on the way up.
]]>There was something very special about Opening Day, the sense that the races were beginning. But tomorrow they will be playing spring training games as well as regular season games. Goofy.
I don't like it.
]]>The Chinese government has defied international anger at its crackdown on Tibetan independence protests, accusing the Dalai Lama and his "splittist clique" of being out to destroy the Olympics and damage China's international reputation.
And exactly what reputation might that be? Certainly China can't be deluded that their abominable record on human rights has somehow escaped the world's attention. You don't run over people with tanks and not create a sensation.
Of course China may be right. There is something unseemly, unholy almost, about the endless stream of protests designed to exploit the world's attention attendant upon the Olympics. The idea behind the Olympics is to lay aside political differences for the games, not resolve all of them. Zeus knows the ancient Greeks went back to fighting each other as soon as the last meddle was awarded.
What makes this particularly intriguing is that the Dalai Lama functions as a kind of spiritual guru. If he is, indeed, interrupting the "spirit" of the Games, then that raises some interesting questions beyond the political. The Dalai Lama, to his great credit, recognizes this and is threatening to resign if the Tibetian issue cannot be resolved peacefully.
Maybe Richard Gere can sort it all out for us, carrying the Dalai Lama out of this conundrum like he did Debra Winger in An Officer and a Gentleman. Lord lift us up where we belong.
]]>The way I see it, it's a great thing to be the man who hit the most home runs, but it's a greater thing to be the man who did the most with the home runs he hit.
Hank Aaron, I Had a Hammer
]]>The Dalai Lama called Sunday for an international investigation into China's crackdown against protesters in Tibet, which he said is facing a "cultural genocide" and where his exiled government said 80 people were killed in the violence.
The demonstrations were the fiercest challenge to Beijing's rule in the region in nearly two decades, leading to sympathy protests elsewhere and embarrassing China ahead of the Olympic Games.
Of course Major League Baseball is ignoring the unfolding tragedy, blinded by the vision of billions of Chinese wearing overpriced official logo gear:
Perhaps no emerging nation presents the potential for economic benefits like one with 1.3 billion possible baseball fans. Selig, having lived through the Cold War, noted the symbolism of the flags of the United States and China flying together beyond the center-field bleachers.
The thought of that old Cold Warrior Selig with his cap over his greedy heart singing the national anthem of still communist China makes me mist up. (Wasn't it Selig who coined the phrase "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"? Who writes this schlock for MLB.com? Oh, nevermind.) He was probably scheming on a deal for Tibetian bats.
As anyone who has read this blog very long knows, I am a strong advocate of the internationalization of baseball. This is one thing Selig has actually got right. There are, however, significant issues to be faced which I'm sure has never entered his amoral equations. Shall human rights be ignored? How do you deal with international conflict? The Olympics have never adequately resolved these and a host of other issues. Is it reasonable to expect MLB will?
Or will they just take the money and look the other way, like they did with steroids, another issue already familiar to the international athletic community?
One thing is for certain: MLB is as facile as the Chinese government with strong arm tactics, and, as we've seen here on MLBlogs, as comfortable with suppression of freedom of expression. So perhaps communist China is the perfect cultural fit for MLB. Tell the Dalai Lama he is welcome in the Red Sox Nation.
]]>Never mind that he has won the most delegates and the math favors him. Obama will be the bad guy if he doesn't embrace the "compromise" that resolves the party's conundrum. This is an exquisite variation of the triangulation the Clintons are infamous for, although I'm sure to Obama right now it feels more like strangulation.
For the Clintons, what does it matter? With a "two fer", the vice president is essentially irrelevant to their presidency anyway. As Maureen Dowd notes:
If he thinks Hillary has cut him down to size lately, he’d better imagine what his life would be like as the Clintons’ vice president
Machiavelli has nothing on the Clintons. They didn't learn from him, he foresaw them.
The irony is it is precisely this sort of political ruthless cleverness that one side believes is absolutely necessary to confront a hostile world, whereas the other side proclaims a better world can be forged. Which is right?
That is the underlying philosophical question of the election, meaning we will be deciding whether we Americans at the beginning of the millennium believe our cup is half fool or morally empty.
NOTE: I know this post has nothing to do with baseball from your perspective, but it does from mine. The irony is I started blogging about baseball because I knew this would be the election of a lifetime and figured I would only get myself into trouble blogging about politics. Who knew?
Actually, my interest in history and politics has always been offset by my passion for baseball. At times when I became so misanthropic from my study of history or the shenanigans of politics, I turned to baseball for refuge. I must confess to being somewhat alarmed that because of blogging they are now becoming intertwined. I have been paying close attention for over a year and a half now, and it has finally reached the point I have to write about politics as a matter of therapy. I can always rationalize they started this when Congress started holding hearings on baseball.
You can find all my political and historical writings at New World Wanderings, the natural evolution of my defunct project, The Jamestown Site. Feel free to drop by and comment, and be sure and leave your blog url when you do!
]]>After a winter of lies, damned lies, and, not statistics, but baseball players themselves, it is easy to succumb to the cynicism latent in the African Bumba myth. After all, our heroes have proven to be what we knew they were all along, deep down. The Mitchell Report vomited up men in all their frailty and evil. Another persistent theme in creation myths is the creator running like **** to get away from his ultimate creation, man. Even in the Biblical creation God posts armed guards at the gates to keep the little ******* from re-entering paradise.
Yet every spring man does re-enter heaven when he crosses that chalked line onto the geometrically perfect diamond where baseball is played.
]]>Nah, just what you'd expect on a baseball site: women's clothing. As if the Victoria's Secret catalog and SI Swimsuit issues weren't enough--and they don't even pretend to be legitimate bloggers!
Be sure and drop by with your dollars and a lot of comment love. That way the twinkies don't have to impersonate so many legitimate commenters. Everyone should enjoy the show. "And now for your entertainment pleasure, the sexy Alyssssssssaaaaaaaa!" Be sure and tip your waitresses!
]]>Earth to Roger: have you ever noticed that people have a propensity to bring cameras to social events where celebrities are present?
Tip for Hangsters: Hire Rusty Hardin as your attorney. Guys like that make the big bucks thinking about things like the fact that people have a propensity to bring cameras to social events where celebrities are present. This clown has ill-served Clemens at every turn. He should have advised Clemens from the onset to say two words: "No comment." Makes you wonder who Clemens' personal physician is, Dr. Kevorkian?
Assuming those photos exist--and the admission by Clemens lawyer makes me think they do--Clemens is indisputably guilty of perjury, the irony being it was Clemens who made attendance at the party the crux of his defense. No party -> No conversation -> No steroids. Looks good on a whiteboard. Too bad it was a whitewash.
Clemens did more than lied to Congress: he made a fool of Congress. How ridiculous does Burton look now waving videotapes purportedly proving Clemens was not at the party and assailing McNamee? He made them look gullible and stupid. Clemens is toast.
I'll give you some free advice, Roger: come clean. Do an Andy Pettitte. Throw yourself on the mercy of the court. Apologize to the baseball public. It is over.
You hung yourself, you dummy.
]]>Photos may exist that show Roger Clemens attended a 1998 party at the home of then-teammate Jose Canseco that was an issue at the Feb. 13 hearings before a congressional subcommittee, The New York Daily News reported.
Such a discovery could undermine Clemens' sworn testimony that he did not attend the party as the congressional committee decides whether to turn baseball's steroids issue over to the Justice Department.
The paper said the photo is owned by a man who attended the party when he was 11 years old and took photos of his baseball heroes, including Clemens. Richard Emery, a lawyer for Clemens accuser Brian McNamee, said he was aware of the new development.
FOX Sports on MSN - MLB - Report: Picture puts Clemens at Canseco party
There would be something deliciously ironic if ol' cheatin' Rog is finally undone by the worshipful actions of an 11 year old fan. He thought nothing of the message his actions would convey to the youth if his dirty deeds were ever exposed.
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