Getting to First Base

News is breaking right now that this winter’s top free agent, Mark Teixeira, is about to sign with the Boston Red Sox for 8 years and $184 million.

Now, pretty much every team in baseball has either bid on Tex directly, or is waiting impatiently for him to end up somewhere so they can move on  with other deals. Deadspin’s Rick Chandler broke down Tex’s impact on the entire market this afternoon:

According to Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports, the row of dominoes looks something like this: The Angels want closer Brian Fuentes, but only only if they lose Teixeira. The Cardinals also want Fuentes, so must wait on the Angels. If the Cardinals don’t get Fuentes, they could go for pitchers Kenshin Kawakami or Will Ohman. If Boston doesn’t get Teixeira, they’re interested in Manny Ramirez, Milton Bradley and possibly others. The Yankees could be after the same group if they lose Teixeira. Meanwhile the Cubs and Rays want Bradley, but can not get him until he exhausts his options with the Angels and Yankees.

Yikes. That’s pretty complicated, right? (more…)

I didn’t eat a single bite of turkey today, nor did I watch any football. Does that make me a bad American?

(For the record, I would love to have seen some Thanksgiving football, but I was helping my parents put Christmas decorations up in their home, and we normally have about twice the number of helpers we had today. So I didn’t have a spare moment for football. That, and I don’t have the NFL Network so I couldn’t have watched the Cardinals and Eagles anyway.)

I can’t, for the life of me, remember EVER playing football in the yard with the family on Thanksgiving. Apparently everybody does that, so I guess my family is strange. We play football together when we can, along with baseball, Frisbee, whatever. But never on Thanksgiving.

And really, how did football get to be such a huge part of the national T-giving tradition anyway? (more…)

One of the most-speculated players of this Hot Stove season is Matt Holliday, the left fielder for the Colorado Rockies. Rumors have linked him to just about every team, and it seemed that the Rockies’ demands for him were steep.

All along, I wondered if teams would be suckered into giving up more than Holliday is worth. His offensive numbers certainly LOOK fantastic, but a closer look quickly reveals that he benefited greatly from playing in a hitter’s park.The 28-year-old righty has hit 128 homers in his five seasons in the Majors, but 84 of them - that’s over 65% - have come at home. Maybe I’m wrong here, but it seems like that number is disproportionately high given that a team’s schedule is split roughly in half between home and road games.

Is Holliday a formidable hitter? Oh yes. But should the A’s realistically expect him to hit near as many homers in their Coleseum as he did at Coors Field? That would be beyond foolish. I hope they adjust their expectations and how much they give up for him according to how good he actually is, rather than according to how he performed in an extreme hitter’s park.

As of this posting - about 4 p.m. Central - we don’t know who Oakland is sending to Colorado for Holliday. This page will be updated as those facts come out.

I AM excited for tonight’s Game 5 of the World Series. Really. Cole Hamels vs. Scott Kazmir? This could be a lot of fun!!

BUT. As I sit here and wait for one last commercial break (Flomax, Viagra, and DirecTV, oh my!), I must acknowledge with great sadness that this could be the last MLB game I watch this fall. If the Phillies win, that’s it; the fat lady sings and we’re left with no baseball until Spring Training. Sure, I’ll be glad to be rid of Joe Buck (whose broadcasts might be more outright offensive than Joe Morgan’s) and Tim McCarver, but I will miss baseball! (more…)

This is just a rumor so far, but I’m already imagining future Sunday nights, with happy feelings and lower blood pressure and no need to assault my mute button every 30 seconds. I shouldn’t get ahead of myself until it’s official, but the New York Daily News has word that Joe Morgan will no longer be a part of ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball broadcasts.

Could the 19-year “Sunday Night Baseball” broadcasting partnership of ESPN’s Jon Miller and Joe Morgan be coming to an end? And will their ESPN Radio call of the Rays-Phillies World Series be the final chapter?

Well-embedded baseball moles contend the answer is “yes” to both questions.

In a word: Woooooooo!

In more words: (more…)

I’m not, by any means, a sports expert. I spend as close to 24 hours as I can every day thinking about/reading about/studying/watching baseball, but NO. I am NOT any kind of expert. I’m just a fan with a mild case of Nerditis and a couple of blogs. That no more makes me an expert than any other fan, or most other baseball writers. Joe Posnanski wrote a while ago about how silly it is that he has to pick NFL outcomes and scores every week. People think he’s got some kind of magical insight that average fans can’t have, an 8-ball of stats and scores that only sportswriters are able to see.

People make that assumption about me, too, though probably to a lesser extent. In one of my classes, we spend a while every week talking about current events, including sports stories. The teacher always  - ALWAYS - calls on me, out of a class of around 50 kids, to detail the week’s sports stories. I’m a sports writer, she reasons, so I must know what’s up. And yeah, usually I do know what has happened in major sports; I’d be out of work in a hurry if I didn’t.

But please don’t come to me looking for future outcomes. (more…)

I’m not a particular fan of the New England Patriots. I mean, I don’t hate them*, but they’re not my favorite NFL team either. I wasn’t one of the people rejoicing when Tom Brady’s knee went in a direction that knees are not supposed to go during a game against the Chiefs early this season. I think, even if were a Patriot-hater, I’d rather see all their best pieces out on the field. If they win, they’re clearly better (but I can hate on them anyway, for reasons of my choosing). If they lose, then hey - more power to the victor for overpowering the best players New England had to offer.

*my hatred of NFL teams is limited exclusively to the Cowboys, the Raiders, and the Broncos. All other teams are subjected to periods of dislike or utter indifference, but never hate.

Anyway, Tom Brady’s early-season injury isn’t my point at all, because the Patriots have done OK, if a little schizophrenic at times, without him (they’re 4-2, and won handily over the Denver Broncos on Monday).

BUT despite a huge margin of victory, it was a sad night for Pats fans, who saw safety Rodney Harrison suffer a season-ending injury. (more…)

He’s Adam now. Grown up, calmed down, focused on nothing except playing footba– what? Pacman Jones is in trouble again?

I’m still a little surprised that a team as completely image-self-conscious as the Cowboys traded for the troubled cornerback in the first place. The Cowboys, after all, are America’s Team, and if one of their players is involved in a nightclub shooting or smokes pot in his hotel room or shoves around his security guard, well by golly that looks bad for America, not just a football team.

And I really have to wonder how Pacman Adam doesn’t watch himself more closely. He was suspended an ENTIRE SEASON in a league where most suspensions are one- or two-game slaps on the wrist. The Cowboys took him anyway, on the condition that he behave his darn self. Surely Jones must realize that if he keeps screwing up, America’s Team will kick him to the curb and no team would scrape him up from the gutter.

Then again, look at this laundry list compiled by The Tennesseean: (more…)