While everyone appeared to have fun during this afternoon’s celebration of Billy Crystal’s birthday, one writer for The Times thinks that the Pirates blew a golden opportunity to earn some good baseball karma. Writing on the Bats blog, Richard Sandomir takes Paul Maholm to task for throwing Crystal a steady diet of sliders and cut fastballs. “Had Maholm laid it in for Crystal, he might have been reciting David Letterman’s Top 10 list on Friday. Instead, he’s the pitcher with a career 10-15 record who whiffed a comedian one day from turning into a sexagenarian,” he writes. Ouch.
Drinking the Yankees
Via PeteAbe comes the news that two more Yankees have lent their visages to Longball Cellars line of Charity Wines. Bobby Abreu and Jorge Posada are the latest two to have their faces immortalized in wine.
Abreu’s Finest is a 2006 Merlot from California. Money from the sale of this wines to the Police Athletic League, the charity of New York’s Finest. The Jorge Cabernet supports The Jorge Posada Foundation.
Also in this latest release is a Schilling Schardonnay. This is an over-the-hill bottle of wine that was once good but now just sits around pretending to be the be-all and end-all of baseball wines.
In which Theo Epstein has to eat his words
A little over two weeks ago, Theo Epstein criticized Mike Mussina over his complaints — from 2004 — about the Yankees’ ill-fated trip to Japan to opening the regular season. At the time, Yankee fans were a little surprised about Theo’s seeming breach of protocol. A GM’s criticizing another team’s player for comments about an unrelated incident are exceedingly rare in sports.
Today, the shoe is squarely on the other foot, and I have to wonder if this isn’t some sort of karmic retribution. The Red Sox, you see, now view their upcoming trip to Japan as a huge inconvenience. Josh Beckett, their ace, is out indefinitely with back problems and will miss the trip. Daisuke Matsuzaka’s wife is expecting, and he may miss the trip as well. The trip — two 18-hour plane rides in four days plus two baseball games that actually count — disrupts the rhythm of Spring Training and generally messes with athletes used to routine.
Publicly, in the Boston Herald, the Red Sox are saying that they’re excited to go. They say they could sit back and complain, but they’re just going to tough it out instead. Of course, reading between the lines, complaining is exactly what they’re doing, and I don’t blame them. In this case, I completely sympathize with the players.
As for Mr. Epstein, I think he should take this one as a lesson. Internally, I’m sure there will be a lot of Boston-based grumblings about this trip both before and after. Mussina just happened to share his with the world. For that, he does not deserve the criticism he received. Enjoy your flights, Theo. I hear crossing the international date line twice in 96 hours does wonders to the body.
Stop fooling yourself, Phil
You guys are not the three amigos; you’re the Big Three. End of conversation.
In other Big Three nickname news, The Bronx Block is holding a naming contest. So if you don’t like the Big Three, go win the DVDs and books they’re giving away.
Yanks sign big-name free agent
Shoring up their offense today, the Yanks signed one of the biggest free agents left. Actor Billy Crystal will join the Bombers on Wednesday for a one-day audition. Crystal, 60, will practice with the team for a day and make his spring debut on Thursday against the Pittsburgh Pirates. While a cute publicity stunt, this move speaks volumes about the Pittsburgh Pirates. Can they even get out a 60-year-old actor?
Update: Just to be clear, this is part of a 60th birthday present from the Yankees to Billy Crystal. It’s not a giant publicity stunt about which some of the more skeptical folks have grumbled.
“I hope it has his eyes.”
A little anti-Yanks bias
As commenter barry notes, we seem to be getting some ads for Yankees and Mets ringtones. Now, I have no clue what these ringtones are — possibly “New York, New York” for the Yanks and “Meet the Mets” for our cross-town rivals, but beyond that, I’m not sure what else they could do. But that’s not what has me scratching my head. Check out the Mets ringtones ad:
They’re all gathered around the plate, apparently awaiting whoever hit a walk-off homer. Everyone looks excited, but more importantly, almost everyone is there. Reyes, Beltran, Wagner, Delgado, Wright…hell, I even see LoDuca off to the right.
Now let’s look at the Yanks ad:
So we get Johnny Damon slapping hands with…Nick Green. What the hell? And Melky’s in the middle of it, looking as awkward as we’ve ever seen him — well, without a bat in his hands, at least. And is that a camera dude in the background? He kinda reminds me of Bob Golic.
Seriously, who’s going to buy Yanks ringtones when Damon, Melky, and Nick friggin’ Green are advertising them?
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