Crooked Pitch

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Brad Ausmus is starting again in place of JR Towles today, specifically because Cooper doesn’t want to “overwhelm” JR with having to catch Houston’s one good pitcher. This despite the fact that JR homered the day before, and is a much better hitter today than Ausmus was when he broke into the bigs 48 years ago. Well the move is already starting to pay dividends for everyone else.

Ausmus had runners on the corners with none out in the 1^st, and a nice 3-1 count on Jason Marquis. And a drum roll please… Houston fans you’ve won another 1-4-3 double play! Brad the Impaler crushed it all the way back to the pitcher, who proceeded to turn two - even after initially hesitating towards 3^rd base.

Woah, but we’re not done yet. Top of the 8^th and the Astros have pulled to within 8-7. Two outs and the tying run on first. Time for Cecil to pinch-hit for Ausmus with JR, who can actually hit homers. What…ah… wait it looks like Cecil’s going to leave Brad in to hit against Carlos Marmol. 2 strikes… what’s it going to be… there it goes… it’s a screaming dribbler towards 3^rd! Ausmus is booking it down the line! So close… actually it looks like they got him by 4 steps. Rally over! Inning over! Game over!

Cecil Cooper, we hardly knew ya’
photo credit: AlphaTangoBravo / Adam Baker

Tim Dierkes has tagged me with a little game of “get to know a baseball blogger” and I must oblige as it has been reported on this very blog that Tim is Superman, and what he says… goes.

Here are 5 things that you, most likely, didn’t know about me.

1. When I was 9 years old and in the middle of a massive snowball fight, I maneuvered behind one of my opponents to sneak up and make a snow tackle (please, remember that I was 9). He was crouched down, so I built some speed, lept on top, and then noticed all of my friends in a different part of the field (I lived on 25 acres). I had just jumped on top of a dead body. In the snow storm, the night before, this guy had attempted to walk home from the local bar. Apparently, he fell into our yard, passed out, and never woke back up. And I jumped on him…
2. I have visited 46 of the 50 states. I am only missing Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Alaska.
3. When I played ball in school, I hit left handed, but threw right handed. I did this because as a very young child, when I finally got a chance to play wiffle ball with the big kids in the cul-de-sac, I was too scared to get far away from my yard. And that meant, to stay close to my house, I had to stay in the left hander’s batter’s box. That was probably the best baseball decision of my life, and I made it as a three year old.
4. I collect newspapers from very memorable days in sports history. The paper has to be from the home town of the team or player in question (no-hitters, championships etc.), or from the town where the historical event is taking place The Masters, U.S. Open etc.). I have Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire’s home run chase, as well as the Barry Bonds chase. I have most Atlanta papers, of any importance, since 2000, when I moved here. But, my most prized posessions are Nolan Ryan’s 6th and 7th no hitters, Pete Rose’s 4192nd hit  and Carl Yastrzemski’s 3000th hit. If anyone lives in major metropolitan areas and are willing to send me a few copies when something special happens sports wise, shoot me an e-mail. I’d be more than thankful.
5. I’m an avid tennis player, playing at least twice a week. I’ve participated in the playoffs at USTA 3.5 and won two ALTA city championships, but still can’t hit a backhand with any regularity.

Now that that is over, I will tag the guys over at Sox & Dawgs, Science Fiction Baseball, & Fantasy League Baseball

It’s official. The Tampa Bay Devil Rays are no more.

In an attempt to recreate their image, the chronically crappy club shortened their team name to the “Rays” during a party with a turnout of 7,000 people in a downtown park Thursday night.

Navy blue and baby blue have replaced the losing green and black, which will obviously help them in the long run. Current players and manager Joe Maddon, as well as former Tampa Bay stars Wade Boggs and Fred McGriff passed as models during a fashion show that donned the organization’s new logo, as well as the home and road unis for next season.

Club officials considered other nicknames like the Cannons, Stars, Wave and Dukes before finally settling on the Rays and creating a logo with a bright yellow sunburst. Yay!

The evening was polished off by a concert featuring Kevin Costner and his band, Modern West. Sweet.

You can put a holiday bow on a pile of poop and spray it with Febreze, but in the end, it’s still a pile of poop.

On Monday, Tim over at Roto Authority mentioned Crooked Pitch as a blog to go check out. Up until then, my readership (hi mom…) had been somewhat small. No worries, Crooked Pitch is less than a month old, and I’m having fun, that’s what matters.

Well, after that post at Roto Autohority (which happened in the afternoon sometime, to my recollection), 132 of Tim’s readers came to poke around on Monday. Wow! All I can say is thanks to Tim and to all of you who came to visit Crooked Pitch for the first time. Please use the contact form to let me know how I’m doing. Let me know what you’d like to see in the future.

In honor of the 132 of you who came to visit, I did a little digging around through the CHONE projections and found these numbers.

These batters will register 132 hits in the 2007 season:

• Ramon Hernandez
• Mike Jacobs
• Conor Jackson
• Ian Kinsler
• Mark Teahan
• Emilio Bonifacio

These batters will strike out 132 times in the 2007 season:

• Austin Kearns
• Reid Brigna

And finally, here are a few pitchers (the list was very long, and I think I’ve carried this joke out far enough) who will record a WHIP of 1.32 in 2007:

• Mark Buehrle
• Matt Garza
• Yusmeiro Petit

Thanks again to Tim and to all the Roto Authority readers who have come by so far. Come back soon and often!!!

Also, if you’d like to check out more of Chone Smith’s projections, visit his blog Anaheim Angels all the way.