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Came across this earlier today. One year ago, Billy Crystal signed a one day contract to live out a boyhood dream, to play for the Yankees.  Billy got a foul ball, ran the count to 3-1, before striking out on to fastballs. Baseball fans should be so lucky to do this.

An internet buddy of mine, Professor Melinda Roberts Tyler and husband Les, are fellow die hard baseball fans. They are season ticket holders of the Red Sox (yes Melinda, I know remember…they beat my Cardinals in 2004).

Well, this clip is for you two.  ON WITH THE NEW SEASON!!!!

So LeBron James’ loyalties “irk”Cleveland fans.

That’s the story all over the news after Lebron was seen hanging out on the Dallas Cowboys sideline before last Sunday’s home opener for the Cleveland Browns, while sporting a Yankees cap that I have seen him wear all the time.

Cleveland, you have bigger problems with sports than worrying about LeBron’s likes outside of basketball.  You should be more “irked” over how the Browns played against the Cowboys.  I was born and raised in Texas. I was a Cowboys fan out of the womb, and I even felt sorry for the Browns getting their butts spanked 38-3.

Face it, you will lose LeBron to free agency when his contract is up. And you deserve to. Well, not so much the fans, but the front office deserves to. Forget about the fact the the NBA front office wants King in a bigger market, but the Caveliars front office does not know their head from their butt when it comes to building a team around this guy. I won’t bring up the names of all those  “wonderfull building pieces” that your front office signed over the years, because I am not one to make a fan cry over something so obvious.

So back to your “irk” over LeBron’s loyalties. He really does not owe you a thing. He’s from Akron. He’s a lifelong Yankees fan. He’s a lifelong Cowboys fan (what did you expect, for him to don a vintage Brian Sipe jersey, while snacking on  a scooby snack?).

He is also a family man and business man. Yes, that’s right, a business man…who takes cares of who is important, which is himself and family. He doesn’t owe you fans a thing.

My advice is to enjoy him while you can, because in two years you’ll be able to seen him only a few times a season when he comes to town on the visitors plane…and don’t think that means in the playoffs either.

Dwight Gooden breaks the season strikeout record for a rookie by whiffing 16 Pirates. Gooden’s total of 251 is six more than Herb Score’s 1955 mark.

Doc K had the world at his fingertips, with a blazing, heavy fastball, and a curveball named “Lord Charles”. Many of very good hitters made many of walks back to the dugout with their bats not even coming close to hitting his pitches.

Such a shame that Gooden succumbed to the disease of alcohol and drugs. I would have liked to have taken my boys to Cooperstown one day and told them stories of him pitching while looking at his plaque for induction.

Once again Rick Reilly writes a gem of an article, this time on Yankee Stadium. I am not a Yankees fan, but this hits home. I live in St. Louis, and grew up with the only “cookie cutter” stadium that ever looked good.

This and many other great bloggers can be found at Blogcatalog.com

LaTroy Hawkins has been suspended three games and fined an undisclosed amount for his actions in Tuesday night’s game against the Orioles, Major League Baseball announced on Thursday, which I think is th correct thing to do.

Derek Jeter was hit by a pitch three innings earlier in the game, so it was perceived as a “protecting you own” pitch.

Now I am all for protecting your teammates. Hell, I have done it in the past, but not by throwing at someone’s face.  You can kill a person with a baseball. Hawkins is not some junk ball pitcher. The man has some heat.  If you are going to go down that route, put it in theor ribcage, or right in their backside. It is still going to hurt, AND send the message of “Hey dude, you ain’t going to get way with throwing at MY teammate.”

Of course, the rules implented these days already handcuff pitching staffs of both teams.  An umpire has the authority (and usually exercises this) to warn BOTH teams after the first hit batsmen at any point of the game. He can warn both teams that the next pitcher will get thrown out if he hits a batter.

To me, this is crazy!!! Say I am in the pennant race against the team they are playing, and their pitcher is their best pitcher, a power pitcher, who needs to be able to throw inside. Well, what I would do, is start a pitcher from my bullpen, have him hit one or two batters in the first ininng with high heat, and hope the umpire warns my team and the other team. If my pitcher get ejected, so what…I will already be have my REAL starting pitcher warming up already.

Let’s say that Randy Johson is pitching for the other team. Well I just took away his potent inside pitch, at least by a little bit. He would be thinking in the back of his head that he needs to make that he does not hit a batter for the rest of the game, therefore my batters have a better chance of sitting on an outside fastball. I have neutralized Randy’s effectivness.

I follow a blog from a lady named Rebecca, who lives up in the northeast. She is a die-hard Red Sox fan. Red Sox fan is a baseball fan, which is why I follow her blog. I read a recent entry of hers, Hank Steinbrenner: by his own protesting – “not stupid”. , where she states that Hank is out of his mind. 

I do not agrre with her, but I also do NOT disagree with her. I can’t!!  She loves her Red Sox. She is SUPPOSED to disagree with Hank, and any self-repsecting Bosox fan should.

With that being said, I replied to her post. The following is what I wrote…

Hank knows exactly what he is doing. That guy is a business man, first and foremost, more so than George. I have listened and read interviews with Hank in the past, dealing with business. He jumped all over this like free tickets behind home plate!!!

And don’t think that the Sox ownership group is giving a wink wink to Hank either.

Don’t think Hank’s comments have not been thought out and calculated. The Yanks, the Red Sox…hell, even Bud Selig, INC…are loveing EVERY MINUTE OF THIS!!!  Why? It makes them more money.

These ownership groups want the regular Jane/Joe fan to feeled loved just as much as Jane/Joe loves them. Passion for sports (or anything else, for that matter)is directly linked to our wallets. Wallets that will be opened up for tickets to the game, that replica jersey/hat at the department store, TV subscriptions, ratings that other companies will pay top dollar to advertise with.

I agree with you that “the young, fair Hank is going to make quite a spectacle of himself in the next few years.” But it is calculated. And it will be encouraged by all parties involved. 

I read an article today by Joel Sherman, New York Post, titled Yanks turn to Santana for Joba strategy.

It talks about how the Yankees are taking there time with Joba, and how they researched the past how how other pitchers fared with the same treatment. Two pitchers were mentioned in this article, Johan Santana and Chad Billingsley. I would like to talk about a pitcher that was not written about, and he didn’t fare to badly with his career.

Hall of Famer Nolan Ryan.

I looked up his stats at www.baseball-reference.com, which is one of my all time favorite sites (The stats have the same set up as baseball cards did when I was a kid). Nolan Ryan pitched until he was 46 years old, 5,714 career strikeouts, threw 7 no-no’s, and 12 more one hitters.

However, a lot of people do not know that he never pitched more than 152 innings until he was 24 years old, his four full major league season.

Now the reason why he was never a full time starter with the Mets, was because of control issues. But hindsight might show that could have been a blessing. By not over using his arm, plus the fact that he had such lower body strength to help in his delivery, he was able to pitch no less than 200+ innings 15 out of the next 20 years, with one of those years being the strike year of 1981.

I, for one, would certainly like to see a guy like Joba pitch as long and productively as Nolan Ryan did.

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Stayed home yesterday from work with a case of sickness. I was starting to feel better, until I flipped on the channel with Jim Rome’s ranting mouth spewing his typical bull-vine scatology that he calls his “thoughts”.

Now Jim was ranting about how painful it is to hear that Billy Crystal is doing his one day with the Yankees.

 Now, I understand the point of his show…ratings…and for him to get that, he has to come off as the equivalent of a professional wrestling commentator (I guess to attract some of the millions of idiots that live and die around the time-slot of Smackdown). Sad thing is, I have been told by some that he would detract away from the excitement of two blind midgets wrestling. Ouch!!

 With all the mundane of coverage of Clemens, Pettitte, steroids, HGH, and Mitchell report, to a lot of baseball fans, hearing that Billy Crystal was going to “suit up” for the Yanks brought us about 5 seconds of a good natured smiling.  To be able to hear about something not necessarily  “positive”, but fun. Something that is being done for FUN!!!!

Yes, I know, it is obviously good PR. So be it!!!  What harm did it cause? The only harm that it caused for me was listening to Jim Rome sound like a scorned child being picked last in a game of pickup of dodge-ball.

Hey Jim, if you feel jealous that no one has agreed to have you show up for a day of fun, how about we set up a match between you and Jim “Chris” Everett in a “celebrity boxing match”, which I would pay to watch him whip your butt!!!