Well, last night was the All-Star game. I didn’t get to see any of it. Why?
Late in the afternoon my wife told me the air conditioning broke in our house, and as such we were dealing with that – which mostly involved trying to keep our two year old cool and happy. I also was fixing a leaky faucet underneath the sink in teh bathroom.
Between two trips to Lowe’s and the baby, and being hot.. All I really got to watch was the player intros, and I did get to see a few minutes which included Ichiro’s inside the parker. That was it. The game had been over for 45 minutes by the time I actually got to sit down where I could watch it if I wanted to. Didn’t want to, I was too hot and too upset from the day’s events.
The only reason I’m even posting this is I saw a comment saying something like “..since you don’t have an All Star Game post…”. :)
Michael Young did not get in the game, but that’s OK with me. His time was last year. Ron Washington was out there as third base coach for awhile, that was nice to see.

You know, when I was watching the Home Run Derby tonight, I have to admit at the start wanting Ryan Howard to win. First because I’m a Phillies fan, and second because he was the defending champ. However, after the thing got started, I have to admit that I wanted Matt Holliday to win the thing. Something about him seemed like “nice guy”. Not that Howard or any of the other guys aren’t, just wanted him to win. But I’ve always been a Vlad Guerrero fan, going back to his days in Montreal. So I was glad he got it.

I did not start watching the Derby until about 9:30PM. This is a good thing, as it allowed me to skip all the garbage in between hitting the balls. It’s toned down a bit, I really detested the accosting of the player coming out of the batters circle to ask them what they thought. GAH – hate that! Thank God for TiVo so I can skip all that, and just watch the balls being hit.

And speaking of the balls, did anyone else have serious issues simply finding the balls in flight? I could barely see most of them in flight, it wasn’t until you saw people again that you could pick up the balls.

Chris Berman seemed to be much more toned down than in previous years. Much less of “back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back ” on home run calls. That’s good. I don’t mind that shtick by him, but it really has gone overboard in the last few years or so. Nice to see that pulled back.

I still would have loved to have seen Bonds in this thing. I actually don’t totally mind his stated answer as to why he wasn’t doing it, which I heard on XM today as “I feel it’s time for the young kids to have the spotlight” (I’m paraphrasing there, but you get the idea). Nice PC answer, but still a bit of a surprise to hear that.

Also, what is with the disrespecting of Albert Pujols I think it was by spending most of his time at bat yakking to Arod about the Yankees? Who cares? I actually watched that in 2x speed so I could still see, and not have to listen to that. Ugh.

There were some really nice overhead views of the Giants park. To anyone reading this who has actually attended games there… Is that really nice view of the water even viewable from the lower deck seats? From the way the stadium is constructed, I would think you’d have to be in the upper deck to get that great view.

And speaking of “views”.. Check out these shots I saw of all the boat guys in McCovey Cove (was nice to see Willie McCovey out there, too)…

Honestly – it seems stupid to be in the mosh pit like that. I imagine people getting stuck under capsized boats. And what’s with the last one? Do they see the ball coming and all back away or something? If not, how does the ball find that little spot of open water in between all those boats like that? :) The funny thing about all those guys out there was the fact that I don’t think more than 3-4 balls were even hit out there. I can only recall one for sure, and one that might have gone in there. There had to be more than just 2, right? :) Oh, and they should have had more shots from Kenny Mayne’s camera. That was pretty amusing.
And finally, this has nothing to do with the Home Run Derby, but.. Did you see the footage from the Rockies / Phillies game on Sunday? The footage of the tarp being blown around by high winds? It was quite amusing to see the Phillies players all run out on the field and help out the grounds crew by holding the thing down. Not sure why the Rockies players didn’t do that, but the footage was quite amusing, although it did look like some of the grounds crew could have seriously been hurt. Check out a story about it, there’s a video clip, too.

P.S. back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back back

Saw this today on a trade rumor site. The source is Ken Rosenthal at Fox. He’s usually pretty reliable. Here goes.

The Rangers and Brewers were close to a trade: Akinori Otsuka to the Brewers for Tony Gwynn Jr. Rosenthal seemed to dislike it, but I think it made sense for the Crew. Regardless, Bill Hall’s injury thwarted the deal as Gwynn will be needed to man center.

Good thing Bill Hall got hurt, as I would have hoped we’d get more than Gwynn Jr for Aki.

This was funny. I laughed rather a lot at this video. It’s “Dinner Bell”, and was produced by CJ Wilson. CJ has his own blog over at the official mlblogs site. If you’ve never read it, you should. It’s good stuff, and is in my daily RSS feed reader.
Anyway, this is one of those silly videos produced with appearances by the majority of the bullpen, a few of the starting pitchers, and a voice over by Tom Grieve & Josh Lewin. Good stuff.

[Read more…]

And you thought the regular old eephus pitch was bizarre. Check this out.

Quick note, as I’m about to drop off and go to bed…
There’s an interesting article over at “The Hardball Times” about the AL West, and how it breaks down in their eyes. Check out this chart from their article. It’s a pretty quick visual representation of how the season has gone so far.

I also know I’m behind in game updates, I’ll catch up tomorrow morning. Too tired now to start to write.

I know we’ll likely be active in the trade market in July, but I wouldn’t think we’d be bringing players in. Especially Jacque Jones. An article in the Chicago Sun Times seems to imply the Rangers are interested in Jones. If we’re bringing in outfielders, I’d want someone a bit higher quality than Jones. Now he’s not bad at all. But if we’re importing, I want someone like oh Torii Hunter.
I can’t see where this move makes a ton of sense for us. Course if guys like Nelson Cruz would take the job that was essentially handed to them on a silver platter, this talk likely wouldn’t even exist.

Just read this over at lonestarball.com. I agree with Adam.
Josh, most Rangers fans aren’t rooting for Sammy Sosa not to hit homers right now, so that #600 will be at home. Get his 600 ASAP, have the celebration, then DFA him so we can bring Botts up. Is it possible to DFA someone in the game during the game? I say we do it as soon as he crosses home plate after #600.
THAT is what Ranger fans are rooting for. In fact, get your two home runs tomorrow night in Pittsburgh, and you can leave him behind at Primanti Brothers in the Strip District.
I think what Josh meant to say is that the Rangers management wants Sosa to not hit home runs and then hit two at home vs the Cubs so we can sell more tickets. THAT is what he really meant to say. I can see why Josh would confuse Ranger management and Ranger fans. It’s a pretty easy mistake to make.

I’m such a dork. :)
I spend an awful lot of time online; I see a lot of the fads and trends in online communication.
When I was looking at some Ranger pictures today, all I could think of for Dice-K is this, so I whipped out Photoshop…