This Week in Baseball 5/19 - 5/25

[EVIL~! alkeiper 0]

Regarding that fan, it honestly only surprises me that he did not die immediately on impact.

[NYU 0]

After watching the Mets get swept by the Braves in a humiliating fashion over the past four games, I wish I could fall 150 feet at Turner Field too.

[Guest Smues]

Don't worry, I'm sure the Mets will kill the Braves next time they go to New York.

 

Worst road record in the league at 6-16. Yet they have the best home record. So odd. 20-5 at home AND our stadium killed someone. Now that's home field dominance!

[Guest Desensitized]

At least he didn't have to die in that carnival warehouse down in Houston.

[Mik 0]

What does everyone think about Dan Uggla? People have been waiting for him to flame out for seemingly two years but yet he's on pace to be the first second baseman with 80+ XBH in two consecutive years since Rogers Hornsby (!). I've finally come around on him. He seems to be a solid but unspectacular 2B who will give you decent power stats. I can't complain about that.

[TheDevilAndGodAreRagingInsideMe 0]

Joe Girardi went fuckin' batshit tonight.

[Guest Desensitized]

Yanks will still win at least 90 games, I'm sure. This has happened every year for four years.

[EVIL~! alkeiper 0]

What does everyone think about Dan Uggla? People have been waiting for him to flame out for seemingly two years but yet he's on pace to be the first second baseman with 80+ XBH in two consecutive years since Rogers Hornsby (!). I've finally come around on him. He seems to be a solid but unspectacular 2B who will give you decent power stats. I can't complain about that.

Decrease that to 79 XBH's and you can add Alfonso Soriano to the list. 77 will get you a three season stretch for Jeff Kent, and two for Charlie Gehringer. You can add Utley at 75. So really it's cherry picking stats, and of course Uggla still has to do it. Not to discredit his accomplishments of course. The Marlins have some good hitters, but their fielding really suffers for it.

[Guest Desensitized]

The goofy-ass park in Houston offends my baseball sensibilities, and if it doesn't offend yours, you're an inadequate fan of the game. Watching three games at that park has made my head hurt. You cannot invent so many quirks out of thin air.

[Dandy 0]

Griffey finally ended his homerun drought one day shy of a month.

[EVIL~! alkeiper 0]

The goofy-ass park in Houston offends my baseball sensibilities, and if it doesn't offend yours, you're an inadequate fan of the game. Watching three games at that park has made my head hurt. You cannot invent so many quirks out of thin air.

It has too many artificial quirks, but it doesn't OFFEND me.

[Guest Desensitized]

The Chik-fil-A-sponsored foul poles, the vertical home run line, the hill with a flagpole, the cheap left field fence, the Jumbotron-reliant fans, there are just so many dreadful aspects to watching an Astros game in Houston. That park is everything that's wrong with neo-retro design. I mean, I guess Crawford Street is an actual constraint on the depth of left field, but everything else is contrived, manufactured kitsch. I love Kauffman Stadium more with every passing year.

[EVIL~! alkeiper 0]

Kudos to umpire Tim Welke for apologizing about missing Alex Rodriguez's home run last night. That takes some guts.

[Guest]

Only thing about Minute Maid Park that bothers me are the foul poles. The hill is great.

[sfaJack 0]

The Chik-fil-A-sponsored foul poles, the vertical home run line, the hill with a flagpole, the cheap left field fence, the Jumbotron-reliant fans, there are just so many dreadful aspects to watching an Astros game in Houston. That park is everything that's wrong with neo-retro design. I mean, I guess Crawford Street is an actual constraint on the depth of left field, but everything else is contrived, manufactured kitsch. I love Kauffman Stadium more with every passing year.

Right on, though you forgot the pumpkin train in left, the incessant noise that blares from the speakers before the game, between innings, and, occasionally, DURING the game (though that probably doesn't come through on TV), and the stupid policy of always having the roof closed if it's warmer than like 75 degrees outside. Might as well have just saved a $100 mil and built an actual dome since the only time the roof's open is early April, late September, and when Bud Selig says it shall be open during the World Series.

 

The fans are the worst though. I was at Tuesday's 4-2 loss, and they had to be prompted by the "LOUDER" signs on the scoreboard to cheer for Valverde when Fontenot came up with 2 outs in the 9th. It's really pathetic.

 

Kauffman Stadium is awesome though. My third favorite park I've been to.

[MarvinisaLunatic 0]

Funny thing about the Os game I went to. Yeah, they lost 8-0, and it was cold and raining..but I sat through the whole thing with my GF. After the 8th inning, the guy sitting next to me got up and was leaving and he started talking about how he likes Camden Yards and all that and was asking how I liked it up here. I said aside from the pummeling I had a good time it wasnt as bad as I thought it would be. Then he offered me 2 tickets to last nights game on the 3rd baseline but I couldnt take em because we had plans for last night.

 

 

[Guest Desensitized]

The Chik-fil-A-sponsored foul poles, the vertical home run line, the hill with a flagpole, the cheap left field fence, the Jumbotron-reliant fans, there are just so many dreadful aspects to watching an Astros game in Houston. That park is everything that's wrong with neo-retro design. I mean, I guess Crawford Street is an actual constraint on the depth of left field, but everything else is contrived, manufactured kitsch. I love Kauffman Stadium more with every passing year.

Right on, though you forgot the pumpkin train in left,

I think they're supposed to be oranges, for Minute Maid. Either product would be equally absurd. The other weird thing is that all that clutter is on the left field side, and beyond center field, the park just kind of stops, like walking off the set of a sitcom. It's dark and grim. I wish somebody would've pointed out "hey, this place is retarded" before it was too late.

 

While we're piling on, I'll also add that the Astros fall into the same category as the San Diego Padres and Vancouver Canucks in that they keep drastically changing their uniforms, but no iteration is ever particularly well-designed, further compounding their mediocrity.

[EVIL~! alkeiper 0]

The fans are the worst though. I was at Tuesday's 4-2 loss, and they had to be prompted by the "LOUDER" signs on the scoreboard to cheer for Valverde when Fontenot came up with 2 outs in the 9th. It's really pathetic.

 

Honestly, it's like this at most parks.

[vivalaultra 0]

The fans are the worst though. I was at Tuesday's 4-2 loss, and they had to be prompted by the "LOUDER" signs on the scoreboard to cheer for Valverde when Fontenot came up with 2 outs in the 9th. It's really pathetic.

 

I was also there for Tuesday's 4-2 victory and from where I was (main concourse behind homeplate), it was pretty loud. It was louder after he got the third out, though. Usually the fans are pretty good at Minute Maid. I mean, there's the fans that come to a ballgame for a social event and the ones that act like buying a ticket is paying a cover charge and just sit in the bar and drink, but I think for the most part the fans respond accordingly to the situation. I guess one of the bad side effects of the Astros' miracle 2004 run is that some of the bandwagon fans haven't yet jumped off the bandwagon, even after the horrible last season.

 

I can understand why some people might not like the quirks of Minute Maid. I, personally, don't find them to be that annoying (except the pumpkin truck) and I especially don't understand all the complaining about the short porch in left, but, meh...diff'rent strokes and all.

[Bruiser Chong 0]

Oh man, you mean they made more noise after they won the game. Ladies and gentlemen, we've got our new best fans in baseball.

[vivalaultra 0]

That's...exactly what I was saying, actually. I'm glad that my statement was not misinterpreted in any fashion.

[Bruiser Chong 0]

Does such a team exist that has a fanbase who regularly makes less noise during the game than when they win a game?

[vivalaultra 0]

Yes, actually. The Dodgers. It's hard to make noise after they win when all of the fans have already left two innings ago.

 

Can we end this unstructured conversation on my self-evident statement now?

[Bruiser Chong 0]

Barry Zito's perfect season is over.

[Guest Desensitized]

Jose Valverde took a comebacker off the glove which then bounced off his head. "Maybe this brush with fate will cause him to have an epiphany and quit acting like such a horse's ass," I said to myself as I saw the footage on Baseball Tonight. After the next break, they showed him getting the save and hopping around with his arms outstretched like he just showed up to a really important family reunion. Then I felt really bad for Matt Clement. The only place he needed to be scared straight was with regard to facial hair, and he was out for months. Then after that, Steve Berthiaume said "THINGS ARE GOING BADLY FOR THE NAY-SHUN" and showed the A's scoring a lot of runs, and I went upstairs.

 

Carlos Zambrano had a four-hit night. We don't need no educationdesignated hitter.

 

Eric Gagne is out with rotator cuff tendinitis, which, if nothing else, sounds dire. There's a fair chance the Brewers just spent the GDP of a third-world country on seven weeks of barely adequate relief pitching. More like Eric Perdu, est-ce que je suis droite?

[Bruiser Chong 0]

When did Mets fans turn against Jose Reyes?

[naiwf 0]

When he decided to stop hustling regularly and for the more than occasional bad baserunning play, you know like getting picked off of 2nd base with no outs in extra innings.

[CanadianChris 0]

Eric Gagne is out with rotator cuff tendinitis, which, if nothing else, sounds dire. There's a fair chance the Brewers just spent the GDP of a third-world country on seven weeks of barely adequate relief pitching. More like Eric Perdu, est-ce que je suis droite?

I don't know, are you right-handed?

[Guest Desensitized]

Ambidextrous, actually. Everything except for writing, I do left-handed. But give me credit for trying to translate a meme into French without using Babelfish. It's been four years.

[CanadianChris 0]

Yes, good effort.