Brett Anderson gets the opening day nod. He’ll face Felix Hernandez, who will be making his 27th consecutive Opening Day start against the A’s.
Anderson and Colon are each scheduled to go two innings today against the Cubs, at Hohokam Stadium, which becomes our spring home next year.
Grill up!
“Hohokam Stadium, which becomes our spring home
next year” in 2015. This is the Cubs’ last year over there, but there’s a 1-year gap before the A’s go to Mesa. Next year is your last chance to see Phoenix Muni, which figures to be demolished when the A’s are gone.up
Word is that the local colleges would be using Muni when the A’s leave.
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I know ASU has considered moving in there but I wonder why the city would want to continue to maintain a 50+ year old ballpark. Seems like the stadium, the practice field and the parking lot across the street could bring in a lot of money for sale of the land.
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land is essentially free out there
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…and now I see that ASU signed a 25-year lease with the City of Phoenix a couple weeks ago. Well, good, it’s got a great setting, if not being the most comfortable Cactus League park for the fans, so I’m glad to see it survive in some form.
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Thanks for the correction. I’ve made one visit to Spring Training, in 1995 I think. Went to games at Muni and Hohokam both…they seemed old then, though not in comparison to Hi Corbett in Tucson, which was a serious throwback park.
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We’re going in a few weeks, and in addition to seeing a couple games at Muni we’re going to see Angels v Cubs at Hohokam.
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I’ve tried going to a non-A’s spring training game and it’s like watching paint dry. Not sure what I’m going to do on the A’s off-day on Wednesday, but I’m throwing enough hiking stuff into the suitcase to do a day hike. I’m flying down tomorrow evening unless the air traffic control system has been sequestered into collapse.
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Well, it was that or going to see the A’s play the Giants in Scottsdale, which ms. s would have refused to do even if it wasn’t sold out; as it stands, we’d have to pay scalper prices. I suppose we could hike too, but the idea of seeing the new lineup, and Hohokam, appeals. Might be a short game though.
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Ha, my original plan, knowing the dates when games would be played but not having the schedule, was that my first game would be tomorrow, March 1. When the schedule was released and I saw the Giants on 3/1 I pushed everything back one day and will avoid the ghastly Orange and Black entirely.
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Sound plan. The only other time we’ve been was in 2010, and we stayed in a hotel in Scottsdale that was overrun with Orange & Black. And that was before they, well, you know.
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Don’t forget to keep a tour of the cryogenics lab in your back pocket!
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The A’s to Mesa deal should be finalized on Monday. It sounds like they have an $8.2 million grant from the Arizona Sports and Tourism Authority for ballpark renovations, then the city of Mesa is spending up to $17.5 million additional. By contrast (and in addition) the city is on the hook for $99 million for the completely new Cubs facility on the west side of town.
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Just when you think public subsidies to sports teams might be evaporating, here’s Arizona and Florida with open wallets. I guess they effectively tax out-of-towners for much of this, but still.
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I have little use for Florizona or their allied flyover pockets of swinelike carpetbaggery.
I was too passively aggressive to wait for a new grill in which to post the Barton article. Or was I too aggressively passive?
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No such thing as too passively aggressive when it comes to Daric Barton.
I just realized what my blasphemy in the church of baseball is… I don’t actually like watching baseball games all that much. I like it in the background while I do other things.
I think I’m going to like baseball in person a LOT better when I get Google Glass, or an equivalent, hopefully by 2015. I want in early on overlaid reality.
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speaking of which, I have some INCREDIBLE ideas for Google Glass apps, but have no idea as to how I would go about developing apps for a system that’s not out for another 9 months, and besides, I’m not a programmer.
I’ve been making patent-style drawings for funsies, but I feel like a child doodling hir daydreams in elementary school.
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Which is exactly why the At-Bat act is such a wonderful thing, especially for us NRAFs. I DO enjoy watching baseball games in person, but I’ve realized over the years that I have a hard time focusing on the Mariners-A’s games that are generally the only way I’m able to watch on TV. Some of that has to do with the Morgan-esque prattling of Hendu, but I just prefer listening to the silky smooth sounds of KK’s voice while I’m doing the evening chores.
Playoff games are the exception, even if I don’t care for the announcer.
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Huh. I kinda liked Hendu when I was living up there.
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he was bad when i was there
Brilliant strategy for capturing moderate voters. Move farther to the right.
throws bomb…
http://www.mercurynews.com/california-high-speed-rail/ci_22688893/california-high-speed-rail-finally-wins-peninsula-lawsuit
leaves.
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I CAN’T WAIT TO TAKE THE HSR TO…. bakersfield.
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I’ve been meaning to get down there to hear Buck Owens and that sound of his.
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I am very excited. Hopefully I will be visiting my boys at college via the HSR.
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Will there be a station near USC?
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union station, I assume.
(yes, I get the joke)
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You’ll probably have to drive to Fresno to get on it first.
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After four years of living in Burlingame among all these self-satisfied, entitled NIMBYs, my position has gone from “HSR ASAP” to “HSR ASAP with the mayors of most of the Peninsula cities tied to the tracks”.
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that sounds doable
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HSRA can go fuck themselves, along with transplants who paint all Peninsulans with a wealth-tainted brush while inexplicably living among them anyway.
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It’s like when people get all worked up about how terrible Californians are at driving in weather. While that may or may not be true, I wonder how many non-transplanted Californians they encounter on their commutes up and down the peninsula.
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This makes me very pleased that my townhouse (which is right next to the tracks and HSR corridor) has a pending offer on it, and very hopeful that the offer actually closes.
Choice RBI triple
Miles head sighting.
dribble to scott feldman
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Was Miles’ body with it?
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We may need to ban the use of “Head” and “dribble” in the same comment.
It’s a Ken Korach Bonus Thursday on the radio.
If anybody is listening to the game, should I be concerned that Coco was taken out after two innings and one at bah?
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That’s unexplained at this point but there was no obvious injury.
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So the funeral is on Monday then?
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It would be nice if Young and Crisp could carve out some time to sit down and schedule out their injuries for the season, so as to avoid this sort of overlap.
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Let’s make it Tuesday just in case they want to Weekend at Bernie’s 2 him.
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Tagline!?!
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Yeah right. Hopefully it’s something like the hemorrhoids acting up.
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Slusser described it vaguely as “soreness,” which could definitely be a euphemism for something like that.
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Or for “got blind drunk and passed out in his Bentley with the gearshift jammed into his ribs.”
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That’s why LaRussa always rents an automatic.
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or blue balls…
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Had to leave to make the Halo tournament in time.
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An Angels’ fan? Grab a rope.
I once bought a shirt at Goodwill, and every time I wore it I had a nearly uncontrollable urge to sacrifice a goat on an altar in the middle of a pentagram. I never knew why, until now.
http://aattp.org/pat-robertson-second-hand-clothes-could-have-demons-in-them-video/
I just found a nice pair of shoes in the client clothes area, but it is a half size too big and just performed poorly on my walk to court and back.
Also, I am sad I missed ken. and although new vince is acceptable, I miss the buancasts
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There’s a new vince?
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Same as the old vince.
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some sports guy based in phoenix. I am not clear on what his regular season job is. He is an adequate PXP guy. Seems to know the players better this year than last. Cotroneo is still the #2 guy.
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He’s about what you hear if you catch a California League radio broadcast. His Twitter account links him to ArizonaSports.com.
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Me too.
Buancasts were fun, and the postgame show was consistent.
via HBT
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That seems physically impossible.
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He layed out flat with some non-zero angular momentum but low angular velocity. As he makes the catch, he tucked. This greatly increases his angular velocity.
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And 3.2 on the Richter scale.
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It’s not his fault.
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That’s a pretty shaky line.
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Colon has a powerful strike/slip
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He’ll rock your world.
Ground rule double for grant green
Sounds like Choice doubled or something in the 9th. Anyway A’s lose.
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Choice: tearing shit up.
Wait, I thought such a big deal was made about opening day being sold out?
I just looked and there are a FKton of tickets available.
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I got a ticket services email a day or two ago saying there was “limited availability” for Opening Night, but I haven’t heard anyone say sold out yet. Of course, even “sold out” usually means there are hundreds of non-contiguous single tickets still available.
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I thought it was only ever “going fast”
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Are we talking about the A’s or some other event?
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5,000 realtors descend in 3… 2… 1…
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I don’t think any A’s player has actually bought a place since Nick Swisher, and he instantly regretted it.
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Though Bay Area property isn’t the worst investment they could be making.
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Swisher bought in December 2007, in Blackhawk, and sold in March 2010. I bet he got his ass kicked on that one.
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He’s ok
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I have an unfinished below-grade basement with 6’6″ ceilings they can rent.
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Me first!
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Interesting trades considered.
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Fucking hell.
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Um… no, that’s 90 miles north in my dungeon.
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Here’s an idea – maybe they ought to try somewhere actually in Oakland.
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Several of the Warriors live in apartment buildings fronting Lake Merritt.
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{contemplates saying something snotty and inaccurate about East Bay towns/people}
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I just talked to Lew and he said San Jose is nice to place to live.
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Win.
Excellent takedown of Bob Woodward over at Gawker. This is the part the really resonates with me:
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Woodward surely peaked earlier in his career but it was one hell of a peak.
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I met Carl Bernstein in Philly in the mid-80s; he seemed a little disappointed that he hadn’t rocketed to media stardom the way Woodward did.
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Well, this is just my opinion but talent played a part in that. Woodward is just the more talented reporter and writer in my opinion…even if someone disagrees with that they’d have to admit Woodward is definitely the harder worker.
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I agree with this. But I also think Woodward fell too deeply in love with his own stardom.
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I’d say the last 5-7 years haven’t been great but the guy is on Mount Rushmore in his profession. Like a lot of people he’s just stayed on too long.
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http://1.fwcdn.pl/ph/49/07/34907/345620.1.jpg
More bad news for cheapskates: BART is going to start charging $1 to park at the Coliseum lot sometime next year.
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The problem there isn’t so much the dollar, it’s that you have to go inside the station fare gates to pay it, thus effectively requiring at least a minimum BART fare paid as well (or maybe even more; someone told me once that if you enter and exit from the same station it’s a $5 charge).
There is a way around this, by signing up for the Clipper Card-associated BART parking placard.
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a whole dollar???
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Usually the pay lots only charge until 3 pm weekdays and not on weekends. So it’s probably fine for all but BART $2 Wednesday day games.
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Yes, that’s how I read it too, it will apply during the daytime hours like the other lots.
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Ah, thanks, that’s re-assuring. Though truth be told I’m mostly a pay lot fellow these days (with a strong preference for Free Parking Tuesdays).
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I strongly support this.
Meanwhile, in Florida, Bush gets swallowed whole!
St. Mary’s better finish this year strong, because they next few years are going to suck. Major slapdown from the NCAA.
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Why is this dumbass removing the best part of the cookie?
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Maybe the better question is why he just doesn’t go out and buy some chocolate wafer cookies.
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do you know him?
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Nope. I looked up the place where his workshop is – in the Pearl District. Spawn1 would absolutely love seeing the machine in action. I suspect he’s getting a lot of requests right now, though.
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Hes right though, there really isn’t a good sandwhich in that part of the city.
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Kenny and Zuke’s is about 7 blocks away. Best pastrami in town.
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Whats the jewish deli on NW 23. They have great pastrami.
I was thinking in the Pearl but I guess thats pretty close.
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I really need to go back
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Yes, you do.
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Rose’s? They closed the one on NW 23rd, although they have a workweek-only location in Wells Fargo tower and another location in the Lloyd District.
so the radio thing was fun.
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i should talk more.
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Radio thing?
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I went with B&R, Josh, Jesa, and Stacy to do the sports overnight thing last night
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That does sound fun. Radio producers should be offering you a lucrative contract in 3…2…1…
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I’m sure the offers will be pouring in anytime now…
Chris Carter just worked a 1-2 count to 3-2 and crushed a ball to left into the wind for a HR off Jason Mott
Kaybait: Can’t remember if the story I read about this woman a few months ago got linked or not, but there’s a new article in today’s Chron.
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Seems reasonable to me… The community colleges should upgrade to the NCAA standard of one year of hormones.
One year of hormones most certainly has sapped 20+% of my upper-body muscle mass. I would think that 15 years worth would pretty much take away any possible advantages from former maleness.
Jemile making his case to be the starting secondbaseperson.
another hit. this time of Bumgardner. who, hilariously enough, is from this small town where everyone, get this has the same last name.
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Kissing cousins.
Jemile is hitting like .600 so far.
Blevins seems to be giving up a bunch of bleeders
weeks couldn’t handle a groundball
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Jemile is fielding like .600 so far.
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heh
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No kidding.
error on a guy named tanaka, a’s have the lead
I love the third panel of today’s Bad Reporter.
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I was gone for that. just touched on the story, is that an accurate account of the dude that shot bin laden?
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Oh, Asmussen is always highly accurate. But I was referring to the far right panel, as I wasn’t including the title block.
jario is giving up hits
Dana Perino just made a nice play.
New vince is calling the game as if the listener cares about the outcome
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its impressive to go from press secretary, bush lackey and fox news commentator to making nice plays at MLB Spring training
travis blackley not doing too well
As linked by deadspin, a fond remembrance of the 1993 Milk Bone set of baseball cards, featuring players and their dogs. How prescient of Mark McGwire to name his dog Ellis.
Also, DFA, there are some pretty sick cardigans featured among the stonewashed jeans and bad mustaches of 1993.
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I like that someone went to the effort of getting their Joe Girardi Milk Bone card PSA graded.
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I had those!
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That entire set of baseball cards was really intended as an instruction manual on how to win an ugly sweater party.
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Finally can we talk about how stupid those players associations hats look?
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“Champagne”
I’m trying not to mentally hyperventilate about Michael Choice what with it being March 1 and all, but he’s not making a lot of outs so far this spring.
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Yay!
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Both halves of my Carp – Choice exchange are looking up!
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I’m tempering my enthusiasm a bit, but it’s getting pretty fucking difficult.
Major goodwill fail by Angels ownership. Trout’s agent is going to FK them hard at the earliest opportunity.
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“As when he learned he would not be the team’s primary center fielder for the upcoming season”
wat
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Yeah, that’s crazy too.
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I assume the CF job was promised to Hamilton during the free agent courtship.
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The Cards:Pujols example notwithstanding, isn’t it still the norm for teams not to voluntarily award bigger salaries to guys under 3-year control, no matter how good they are? Not counting extensions through arby years, of course.
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no they do award biggger salaries, but not really by that much usually its just like 100k
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Looking for comparables (obviously hard with Trout) there are 4 other players since 2000 with 5+ WAR in their rookie year; Pujols, Tulowitzki, Heyward and Harper.
Pujols got $200K in his rookie year (2001), raised to $600K (2002) and $900K (2003) before his 7/$100M contract.
Tulowitzki got $381K in his rookie year (2007), before getting 6/$15M in 2008.
Heyward got $400K in his rookie year (2010), raised to $496K (2011) and $565K (2012) before a arbitration-avoiding 1/$3.65M deal.
Harper signed for 5/$10M out of the draft.
Make of that what you will.
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My god this agent is an idiot. Going to the press and whining over a couple hundred K before arbitration is the definition of failing to pick your battles. Do you ever hear Boras or Arn Tellem making a big deal about this?
As a pre-arb player, you smile, take your licks, and right any perceived wrongs during arbitration and free agenecy. I’ve never even heard of Craig Landis so I can only assume he’s new to the game and doesn’t really know what’s going on.
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I’m kind of surprised it’s even a story.
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Fosse agrees. He put Trout’s agent on blast during today’s broadcast.
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Well the Angels can make any decision they want, and if that decision happens to sour Trout on them, then I am all for it.
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Sauertraut?
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I think they need to Free Trout.
Mark Purdy breathlessly lays out Sam Liccardo’s Sue the Giants scheme. I still say, imaginary pro bono litigators notwithstanding, San Jose would be really foolish to sign on to such a longshot risk. I think it’s all bluster.
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It doesn’t sound like the sort of thing Selig and Co. would like.
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Indeed. Also smacks of desperation…that’s the kind of move you make when you think you’re about to lose.
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Sounds more like impatience. MLB has a history was blinking when it comes to protecting their AT. Based on this article it’s basically just a story for the sake of a story. Everything in it is fairly old news. They’ve been willing to actually do this for a couple of years now, the only reason they haven’t is Wolff continuing to say not to.
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The reason is to put public pressure on Wolff to allow the lawsuit.
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Well sure. That and to signal to MLB that they’re willing to go that route if they have to. Mostly it’s just more posturing though.
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It’s also an early bid for attention from Liccardo, who wants to succeed Reed as mayor. I don’t know that it’s particularly a winning one.
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Yup. It’s mostly to get the name in the paper. It’s neither a winning nor losing move. Mostly unnecessary.
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I agree with this.
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Me thinks your bias is showing.
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Yes, I do have a bias against stupid lawsuits, it’s true.
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The other thing is that they wouldn’t even be able to sue the Giants. The Giants aren’t preventing them from moving, it is the MLB who has granted the territorial rights and is enforcing them. Dumblefucks would get that lawsuit tossed immediately.
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Why couldn’t they sue MLB?
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They could. However, the risk of that going over poorly and being seen as Wolff by proxy suing his fellow owners is much much much higher. Notice how the article doesn’t mention them suing the MLB once.
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ah. Boo.
I want MLB to fall apart and professional baseball to radically reorganize.
Novelty is fun. Lack thereof is increasingly tiring.
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Not really. It’s well established that the Giants franchise is blocking the A’s. They even have quotes from MLB stating that. While there’s no lawsuit the city could bring up that would stand up to the various appeals, I’m sure both the Giants and MLB will be included in any suit and at the end of the day, they probably have enough to get it into court and that’s all they really need. MLB will never risk putting their AT under court scrutiny regardless of the strength of their case behind it.
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The risk of losing AT really isn’t as bad as people think. Essentially the CBA would become a master contract
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for the time being, but future negotiations might be significantly colored by the end of the AT exemption.
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The fall of the AT exemption would actually probably hurt teams like the A’s the most TBH
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Well, it would fk their minor league system. From what I’ve read that’s amount the extend of it’s impact. It also gives the player significantly more power in the CBA negotiations. I see neither as a bad thing from a fan perspective.
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The minor league system would essentially just become integrated and more franchises would buy them.
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Possibly. But the minor league players would have to be part of the union (and therefore get paid more (yay!)) since they’d lose that part of the control. The amount of leverage the union would get over the reserve clause would be huge.
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Not really. The MLB players could still fuck them by creating a dramatically lower second tier.
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Yes, but that’s all based on the AT. Without the AT, the MLB players wouldn’t have as much control over them.
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no it isn’t based on the AT. it is based on general labor negotiations that I have been apart of or observed where there is no AT.
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The AT holds up the reserve clause. Without that, the union has no reason to keep it. Also allows non-union members easier access to act on their own behalf.
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thats not factually accurate
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Everything I’ve read suggests it is.
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Hi. Labor Rep. Know what Im talking about.
If the mlb teams bought the milb teams, the players would have to get a micro unit, which probably wouldn’t be granted.
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Almost everything.
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So, these pro bono lawyers will take a case on contingency that has no chance of succeeding at any level of appeal except, possibly, by the Supreme Court, many years later. These imaginary lawyers must have deep pockets, a lot of patience, and a serious taste for longshot investments.
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this is also a strong point.
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Mostly because A) It likely settles out of court B) Earns political favors from the possible successor for mayor C) Ups their name value.
The Atlantic on Loria. There’s nothing friendly about that.
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Nice article about Loria’s Miami-era chicanery. But the book that needs to be written is one encompassing Loria’s full tenure in baseball. For example, complaining to Selig about the Miami situation sounds foolish when you recall that Loria and Selig conspired to grossly abuse of the power of the antitrust exemption through Loria’s sale of the Expos to the league for a 1000% profit, plus an no-interst loan, to then buy the Marlins.
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Not to mention all the BS even before that, destroying baseball in Montreal resulting in the need to sell. Loria is easily one of the most vile people in the world. I bet he eats babies for breakfast.
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just to make them suffer. He doesn’t even like how they taste.
This is just terrible, worse than sitting in the back ala Rosa Parks…
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2013/03/03/israel_launches_palestinians_only_bus_lines_in_west_bank.html
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wow.
Fascinating, would love to see this done w/ chords as well.
http://www.cymascope.com/cyma_research/musicology.html
When I was young my father would visualize different kinds of music through the his oscilloscope to blow my 7 or 8 yr old mind, one of my favorite memories.