commisholio
Come out with your pants down!
Thank you, thank you, thank you Phillies and Rays for saving us from Dodgers-Red Sox. I'll be happy whoever wins, just hoping for some epic baseball.
Don't discount Moyer's ability to change speeds. Granted he's not thowing smoke, but an off speed pitch that varies between 76-82mph can be very effective with just a slight change of speed and location against over-anxious hitters.Mussina was very effective against us this year but it was mainly due to his outstanding location. He threw a ton of 2 seam fastballs and showed 20mph separation with his fastball and curve that keps batters off-balance. He'd throw his heat 86-88 and then snap a 66-68 mph 12-6 curve, not that slurvy crap Moyer throws.
SOme reason I thought you were a Philly FAn but Congrats!!!! Should be awesome.Guess who's going to Game 1 of the World Series?ointsthumbs:THIS GUY
Moyer has put up 3 stinkers - he's due for a good gameDon't discount Moyer's ability to change speeds. Granted he's not thowing smoke, but an off speed pitch that varies between 76-82mph can be very effective with just a slight change of speed and location against over-anxious hitters.Mussina was very effective against us this year but it was mainly due to his outstanding location. He threw a ton of 2 seam fastballs and showed 20mph separation with his fastball and curve that keps batters off-balance. He'd throw his heat 86-88 and then snap a 66-68 mph 12-6 curve, not that slurvy crap Moyer throws.
3? He pitched fine the day they clinched the division.Moyer has put up 3 stinkers - he's due for a good gameDon't discount Moyer's ability to change speeds. Granted he's not thowing smoke, but an off speed pitch that varies between 76-82mph can be very effective with just a slight change of speed and location against over-anxious hitters.Mussina was very effective against us this year but it was mainly due to his outstanding location. He threw a ton of 2 seam fastballs and showed 20mph separation with his fastball and curve that keps batters off-balance. He'd throw his heat 86-88 and then snap a 66-68 mph 12-6 curve, not that slurvy crap Moyer throws.
He's facing playoff caliber competition now, I think the Rays will knock him around in Game 3belljr said:Moyer has put up 3 stinkers - he's due for a good gameDon't discount Moyer's ability to change speeds. Granted he's not thowing smoke, but an off speed pitch that varies between 76-82mph can be very effective with just a slight change of speed and location against over-anxious hitters.Mussina was very effective against us this year but it was mainly due to his outstanding location. He threw a ton of 2 seam fastballs and showed 20mph separation with his fastball and curve that keps batters off-balance. He'd throw his heat 86-88 and then snap a 66-68 mph 12-6 curve, not that slurvy crap Moyer throws.
My father played third base as a kid. He was named Henry Louis Troxler, after Lou Gehrig. This did not keep him, in his later years, from a healthy dislike of the New York Yankees and their bloated payroll.
From his hospital bed a few weeks ago, he asked me how "your team" was doing, and I knew exactly what he wanted to know. "Second-lowest payroll in baseball, first place in the AL East," I said. He smiled for the first time in a while and said, "That's all right." This was his highest praise.
I have a book that he gave me, which his father gave him, a 1956 tome titled The Fireside Book of Baseball. It's a collection of great sports writing. As a kid, I read it over and over. I used to know a lot of it by heart, like the famous poem about the legendary Cubs double-play combination:
These are the saddest of possible words,
Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance.
Close to this book, I keep a black, loose-leaf binder, a homemade score book. For no particular reason, I'm looking at the page for April 24, 2005, a game between the Tampa Bay (then-Devil) Rays and the visiting Boston Red Sox.
That game was still within reach until the top of the eighth inning. My scorecard for the Boston half of that inning reads: Walk. Walk. Groundout. Walk. Single. Home run. Strikeout. Home run. Walk. Single. Walk. Flyout.
Red Sox 11, Rays 3.
Sigh.
Most of baseball consists of losing. Maybe that's not true mathematically, but it is true emotionally. Ask a Cubs fan. Ask a Red Sox fan. Ask our arriving friends from Philadelphia, whose ballclub, precisely because of its long and storied history, last year became the first club to lose 10,000 games.
Ten thousand games!
And yet, if you are from Philadelphia, you'll always have the Birthplace-of-Our-Nation, Cradle-of-Liberty thing going for you. Hard to top that. An occasional World Series for you is icing on the cake, even if your last appearance was 15 years ago.
But for us …
Look, I'll be honest. This is the Biggest Thing that Ever Happened in St. Petersburg, Period.
It's one of the biggest things ever to hit the Tampa Bay area, too, although the Lightning did win the Stanley Cup and the Bucs won the Super Bowl a few years back.
Oh, and give Tampa and Teddy Roosevelt credit for winning the Let's-Invade-Cuba Bowl a little earlier.
Otherwise, if it weren't for the Rays, one could argue this has been a pretty mediocre year around these parts, if not a mediocre few years.
Maybe it started in '04, when nature used Florida for hurricane target practice. That sure knocked the bloom off the orange tree. It didn't help when every insurance company in America suddenly said, "Wait a minute — you guys live near the water? You didn't tell us!"
For a while, too, everybody's house around here was worth a bazillion dollars, which unfortunately meant that everybody's house started getting taxed at a bazillion dollars. This has been a big problem. You guys in Philly like to boo the opposing team for fun. We boo city councils.
And then, all of a sudden, nobody's house was worth a bazillion dollars. Since our official state pastime in Florida is building houses and condos, you can see that this might have especially bad side effects.
This brings us back to the baseball team and its importance in a long, hot summer.
The Rays are upstarts compared to the Phillies, having begun play in 1998. But give us some credit in the suffering department — 10 years of losing and nine last-place finishes has to count for something.
These days Tropicana Field is full and exciting, and I am glad for it, but it hasn't always been that way. Heck, it wasn't that way a couple of months ago.
If you think the Trop is a bad place for baseball, you ought to see it with 8,000 people in it year after year, most of them rooting for the other team. If I never again am drowned out by the chant, "Let's go, Red Sox," or people gushing, "Look, it's JEE-tah, it's JEE-tah!" that will be fine.
So now, the World Series.
For us, this is a miracle of the universe, proof that anything is possible. Florida's bad year, the bad run of years, feels better.
Here is what the legendary Red Smith wrote in 1951 on the day that Bobby Thomson of the New York Giants hit "the Shot Heard Round the World" off Ralph Branca of the Brooklyn Dodgers:
Now it is done. Now the story ends. And there is no way to tell it. The art of fiction is dead. Reality has strangled invention. Only the utterly impossible, the inexpressibly fantastic, can ever be plausible again.
So, too, for the worst-to-first Tampa Bay Rays. So, too, for a World Series in St. Petersburg.
I took the book home and sat by my father's bedside and read to him, and we complained about the Yankees together. It was a good use of time.
Pitcher spot has to bat if Coste is moved to Catcher. You could always PH for him, but if Hamels is dealing, you dont want to do that. Hell, Cole might be a better hitter than Ruiz anyway. Safest move would be to DH Howard and play Coste at 1B. Charlie has already said he wont do this though.Can someone clarify something about the DH rule?There has been a lot of discussion about who will DH for the Phillies against Kazmir. Against the righties, it's no problem, as we've got Dobbs, Stairs and Jenkins.The right-handed bats are Coste, Taguchi and Bruntlett.Coste is definitely the best hitter of those 3, but the problem is that he is the only catcher on the roster, other than Ruiz.Someone raised the point on the radio yesterday that you could DH Coste and then just move him to catcher if they want to pinch-hit for Ruiz or if he gets injured. Then you'd just make the pinch-hitter the DH.But the host then conferred with someone and claimed that if they move Coste from DH to catcher, then the pitcher has to bat (?)Can someone clarify this?
awesome!I'd love to go to a game too.Guess who's going to Game 1 of the World Series?ointsthumbs:THIS GUY
No, you're right... Werth was drafted as a catcher and is the Phils emergency catcher. Pretty sure he played some catcher for the Doggers back in the day. Not many 6'5" catchers though.I might be imagining this, but didn't Werth catch in the past? Obviously not the first option here, but in an emergency situation he could fill in I guess, no?EDIT: Ok it appears that I DID imagine it, as baseballreference has no record of him even playing one game at catcher. Not sure who I was thinking of. Carry on.
Nope, your actually right. I played ball against him in High School. He caught and threw p-rods down to 2nd base. Pretty discouraging for our base stealers.I might be imagining this, but didn't Werth catch in the past? Obviously not the first option here, but in an emergency situation he could fill in I guess, no?EDIT: Ok it appears that I DID imagine it, as baseballreference has no record of him even playing one game at catcher. Not sure who I was thinking of. Carry on.
That would be the correct answer. From MLB rulebook...The Designated Hitter may be used defensively, continuing to bat in the same position in the batting order, but the pitcher must then bat in the place of the substituted defensive playerCan someone clarify something about the DH rule?
But the host then conferred with someone and claimed that if they move Coste from DH to catcher, then the pitcher has to bat (?)
Can someone clarify this?
Cool didn't see you asnswered that one. But I believe that would be a terrible move, as bad as Howard can be at first, there's no way I'm starting Coste at 1b in the World Series. Think about that for a second. He played one game at first all year, and now you tell him he's starting in the WS? Nothing against Coste but we shouldn't put people in unfamiliar situations, especially in the WS. It could even affect Howard. Leave everything as is, the DH is just an extra hitter, not a defensive replacement, so just pick one from the bench. GO PHILS!!Pitcher spot has to bat if Coste is moved to Catcher. You could always PH for him, but if Hamels is dealing, you dont want to do that. Hell, Cole might be a better hitter than Ruiz anyway. Safest move would be to DH Howard and play Coste at 1B. Charlie has already said he wont do this though.Can someone clarify something about the DH rule?There has been a lot of discussion about who will DH for the Phillies against Kazmir. Against the righties, it's no problem, as we've got Dobbs, Stairs and Jenkins.The right-handed bats are Coste, Taguchi and Bruntlett.Coste is definitely the best hitter of those 3, but the problem is that he is the only catcher on the roster, other than Ruiz.Someone raised the point on the radio yesterday that you could DH Coste and then just move him to catcher if they want to pinch-hit for Ruiz or if he gets injured. Then you'd just make the pinch-hitter the DH.But the host then conferred with someone and claimed that if they move Coste from DH to catcher, then the pitcher has to bat (?)Can someone clarify this?
Howard is a butcher.Lets go Phils. Im jacked. We gon hit.Cool didn't see you asnswered that one. But I believe that would be a terrible move, as bad as Howard can be at first, there's no way I'm starting Coste at 1b in the World Series. Think about that for a second. He played one game at first all year, and now you tell him he's starting in the WS? Nothing against Coste but we shouldn't put people in unfamiliar situations, especially in the WS. It could even affect Howard. Leave everything as is, the DH is just an extra hitter, not a defensive replacement, so just pick one from the bench. GO PHILS!!Pitcher spot has to bat if Coste is moved to Catcher. You could always PH for him, but if Hamels is dealing, you dont want to do that. Hell, Cole might be a better hitter than Ruiz anyway. Safest move would be to DH Howard and play Coste at 1B. Charlie has already said he wont do this though.Can someone clarify something about the DH rule?There has been a lot of discussion about who will DH for the Phillies against Kazmir. Against the righties, it's no problem, as we've got Dobbs, Stairs and Jenkins.The right-handed bats are Coste, Taguchi and Bruntlett.Coste is definitely the best hitter of those 3, but the problem is that he is the only catcher on the roster, other than Ruiz.Someone raised the point on the radio yesterday that you could DH Coste and then just move him to catcher if they want to pinch-hit for Ruiz or if he gets injured. Then you'd just make the pinch-hitter the DH.But the host then conferred with someone and claimed that if they move Coste from DH to catcher, then the pitcher has to bat (?)Can someone clarify this?
If ever there was the time, , and you missed it!Someone actually suggested using Taguchi as the DH. I damn near drove off the road. And I'm a truck driver.
:X Good lord. Could that have been any more.......festive?Backstreet Boys singing the "National Anthem" Sing the song the way its supposed to be sung you tools.
This was a joke. Nobody laughed.Needed to clear that up, as I have to leave the thread now (DVR'ing the game). Just read that Utley went yard. That much is fine I guess, took Philly...Anyway,Surprised how good-looking McCarver still is...
HD is back. my God, how did I ever watch tv before HDHey fox, fix the HD feed.Thank you
Fox Broadcasters in HD = uber scary.This was a joke. Nobody laughed.Needed to clear that up, as I have to leave the thread now (DVR'ing the game). Just read that Utley went yard. That much is fine I guess, took Philly...Anyway,Surprised how good-looking McCarver still is...