All in Baseball and Other Sports

33 years old... total of 16 2/3 innings of total major league experience. 

Now he's 10-0.

Did anyone get the number of that turnip truck?  I'd like to see if any closers fell off of it for the Mets to use in 2006.

Reminds me of that line about how the Yanks could pick up a hooker on the West Side Highway and insert her at second base and she'd probably manage to hit .280.

They have no place competing this year and I hope the Sox beat the pants off of them this Series.

Ironic how they also wouldn't be here if it wasn't for Jason Giambi, right?  A year ago, he was  dead to them.  Now, he's the prodigal son.

Its   1AM.  When I got home from tonight's Met loss, I found an NES emulator called Console Classix.

Of course, what was the first thing I did.

You guessed it.  I played a game of Tecmo Super Bowl.  I was the Raiders.  In this game, for some reason, Bo Jackson is a god among mere mortals.  I mean, he can't be touched.  Even when the other team picks the right defense and 11 guys pile on him, he breaks out of it and runs down the field.  I dominated the Houston Oilers 58-7.  Here's the final boxscore:

Tecmo
Things to note:

Bo only ran for an 27.7 yards per carry and only 8 of his 18 runs resulted in touchdowns.  At only 499 yards, this was a subpar game for Bo, but its been about 12 years since I've played the game.

I did attempt one pass with Jay Schroeder, whose scrubbiness in Tecmo was surpassed only by his real life ineptitude.  He got picked off in his one attempt.  That was the end of the Jay Schroeder experiment. 

Marcus Allen did not get the ball.

Do you think Bo has ever actually played this game?

I've been a bit quiet about this baseball season, but I've been watching, not to worry.

Here's my update:

I say a little prayer to David Wright every night that he will watch over this franchise and deliver us a championship.  This guy, at 22, is amazing.  No question about it--he's the best position player the Mets have developed since Strawberry.  Jeez... that's 20 years ago.  Its ironic, too, that he plays third, because historically thirdbase has been a black hole for this team forever.  Something like 150 different people have played third for the Mets in their 43 year history.

I believed in Jae Seo.  Always have. 

Tom Glavine still sucks.

Mike Piazza is the new Jake Taylor.  You watch...  they tie for the wildcard and Piazza lays down a bunt while Jose Reyes scores from second.

I've never seen an infield so divided.  Could Reyes and Wright be more exciting?   Could Matsui and Mienkczewitz be any worse?  Maybe this Mike Jacobs kid will play out. 

Cliff Floyd.  We knew what we got there.  Healthy=good.  He's healthy this year.

Carlos Beltran?  Jeez...    what a bust he's been.  At least he's finally started running.  It would be useful if he could turn it up a notch in September like he did in last year's playoffs.  Apparently, he seems to be better with some broken bones in his face.  Now all the disappointments are trying it.  Randy Johnson.  Adrian Beltre.  Jason Schmidt.  Players from all around the league are smashing their faces against their teammates. 

I don't know how this season will turn out, but I will say that Philly and Houston are pretty beatable and I'm not particularly scared of them.  And... can the Braves stop winning?  BTW... Did anyone else notice that Julio Franco turned 47 this week?

You have no idea how hard I want the Indians to nab the wildcard in the American League.  Can someone tell Jhonny Peralta that he spells his name wrong?

I hope Red Sox-Cards is more exciting this year.  The Cards really didn't put up much of a fight last time. 

Just two weeks ago, Fordham played a perfect defensive game on the field. 

On Wednesday night, they gave up 15 runs to a team that hit the ball out of the infield just a handful of  times, dropping their record to 2-5.  Clearly, this went awry in the field.  After the game, Fordham fired fielding coach Bill Buckner.

"I taught them everything I knew, and apparently it just wasn't good enough," Buckner told the press.

The bad fielding crushed an otherwise solid effort on the mound by Patty Dickerson, who proved to be quite durable, throwing 243 pitches in the losing effort. 

The team may have been feeling a bit pressured to turn in highlight film plays in the field, because the offence has been non existent.  The team has only averaged 4.57 runs a game, second worst in their division. 

Still, you have to give the team credit for having heart.  After the game, most of the players stayed for an extra 45 minutes of practice, in addition to the extra inning they played after the mercy rule kicked in. 

Also hurting the team were the departures of Alexis Kramer to Chicago and Kevin Rodricks to Boston.  Both players were traded for future considerations in cost cutting moves forced by the movement of University funding to scholarship students. 

"Apparently, academics, and not alumni softball, is the priority for this school," commented Manager Charlie O'Donnell after the game.  "You have to wonder whether or not the University is really thinking about the future if they're going to have these kinds of lopsided priorities."



If anyone would have told manager Charlie O'Donnell that the anemic Fordham offense would only muster three runs against Megahurtz--a team that had not lost yet and had a record of 4-0-1, he probably would have thought yesterday's game was going to be a rerun of the team's previous efforts. 

And boy, would he have been wrong, because everyone knows that pitching and defense win games.

Patti Dickerson tossed 7 innings of one run ball, striking out four along the way, to get Fordham its first real win, 3-1.  She was backed up by errorless, yes errorless, as in, perfect, as in, every time the ball was hit to someone, they caught it, defense.  The play in the field was led by Jason  Giannitti, who also drove in the go ahead runs for Fordham in the bottom of the sixth with a two-run single that scored Ron Zapata and Samara Finn.  Giannitti vacuumed up flyout after flyout in leftfield.  The left side of the defense was also bolstered by the cleatless Kevin Rodricks, who, despite the lack of traction, managed a few circus catches for ESPN's Slowpitch Softball Tonight.

The win, combined with ABA's forfeit last week, gives Fordham a 2-4 record.   There is also a suspended game that Fordham leads 7-5 with two innings to go that needs to be completed later in the season.  If Fordham can pull that game out, they're actually not out of contention should this win spark any kind of streak.  One thing's for sure, they'll have to find a way to get the offense sparked, because three runs a game is going to be very little gas for a long road up the standings.

IMG_1843

After the game, the team signed the game ball and gave it to Patti Dickerson for her efforts in the franchise's first actual win on the field.