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R.I.P. George (The Boss) Steinbrenner

July 13, 2010 By James View Comments

Say what you will about Steinbrenner, one thing is for sure, virtually no one has had as much of an impact on the game of baseball and how it has been played over the past 30 years than The Boss.

I never understood people’s accusations that Steinbrenner “bought” the best teams. Isn’t that what a baseball club is supposed to do? MLB has revenue sharing for a reason, to help level the playing field for smaller market clubs. The Yankees pay out more into that pot than any other team in the league.

While other owners run their teams as a business with a bottom line, Steinbrenner only cared about winning, no matter what the cost. He invested everything he made from the Yankees back into the Yankees and in the process, built an empire.

One thing I am always fascinated about is how fragile history is. How seemingly insignificant moments wind up having such profound effects on the course of history. A year before buying the Yankees Steinbrenner had unsuccessfully tried to buy the Cleveland Indians. It’s impossible to imagine what the landscape of baseball would like had he succeeded. The Yankees very well could have continued to wallow in the basement of the American League. 

Luckily, for us Yankees fans, that’s something that we don’t have to imagine. Thanks for all of the great memories Mr. Steinbrenner, your presence will be missed.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: baseball, george steinbrenner, mlb, obits, yankees

The Worst Call in the History of MLB

June 2, 2010 By James View Comments

In the 141-year history of Major League Baseball there have only been 20 perfect games thrown. After tonight there should have been 21 perfect games thrown had it not been for what could possibly go down in history as the worst call ever made.

After retiring 26 batters in a row Armando Galarraga, as you can see above was robbed of what would have been the second perfect game in five days.

The umpire, Jim Joyce, admitted he’d made a mistake after the game but that’s a little too late. There is absolutely no reason why the commissioner’s office shouldn’t immediately overturn this call first thing in the morning. It was the last out in the bottom of the ninth, nothing needs to be replayed, that was the last out. Period. End of game.

Keith Olbermann puts a little perspective on what Jim Joyce should have done in that situation:

In fact, you do what Frank Pulli did, 11 years ago this past Monday. He was in Florida and Cliff Floyd banged one off the visual obstacle course that was the scoreboard in left. Above the line it’s a homer, otherwise it’s a double. There were more lines on the scoreboard than on a volleyball court or a parcheesi board. Frank says to himself, I want to get this right, so he went over to a tv camera and asked to look at the replay. Mind you, this is nearly a decade before they passed replay, but Frank didn’t care. The call counted, not the rule. The integrity of the game was not supported by adhering to the protocol, it was undermined by it.

More over, that’s exactly what baseball should do right now. The Commissioner should appoint an emergency committee to examine the expansion of replay on a formalized basis with set rules. And in the interim, in fairness to Armando Galarraga, in fairness to Jason Donald, in fairness to the fans, and especially in fairness to Jim Joyce, he ought to do a little ad hoc of his own: overrule Joyce’s safe call and give Galarraga what he in fact accomplished, and only the arrogance of authority is denying him -- the perfect game he pitched tonight in Detroit, the majors’ third this season, second in five days, and fourth in the 135 days of play dating back to Mark Buehrle’s job last season.

The umpire himself has admitted he made a mistake, there’s no reason why MLB shouldn’t step in and make things right.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: armando galarraga, baseball, jim joyce, mlb, Videos

Play Ball

April 10, 2009 By James View Comments

New Yankee StadiumAs you may or may not know, for the past couple of years I’ve working for Major League Baseball, specifically, MLBAM as a marketing producer. The position affords me many opportunities to work on a wide variety of projects and which keep me both busy and engaged.

That goes doubly so from about the end of February through Opening Day. Breaking out, dusting off and cranking up the machinations of Major League Baseball is a huge undertaking for all involved. That being said, I’m pretty much completely AWOL from my own site and virtually anything unrelated to baseball for these two months.

Hopefully, as things start to ease back to the normal hum of the season, I’ll be able to stop neglecting my personal site and get back to writing and tweeting and all that fun stuff.

One thing I’m particularly proud of that I’ve worked on over the past couple of months is creating and developing twitter.com/mlbtv, chronicling the unbelievable launch of our new 2009 MLB.tv Premium Player. If you’re a baseball fan, you’ll definitely want to check it out.

Filed Under: Blogging Tagged With: baseball, Blogging, mlb, mlbam

Barry Bonds ’03 Sample Tests Positive

February 4, 2009 By James View Comments

barrybondsIn a turn of events that can’t bode well for Barry Bonds, who is already being indicted on perjury charges by the federal government, it seems that in 2004 one of Bonds’ League mandated drug tests came out positive for traces of steroids.

Why is this so bad?  Bonds swore, under oath, that he had never knowingly take steroids of any kind.

According to what the New York Times will publish in it’s paper tomorrow:

The test, which did not come up positive when administered and reviewed by labs assigned by MLB that year, tested positive for traces of steroids when the federal government analyzed it again, the Times reported. Those tests were seized from the lab in a raid by the feds in 2004.

Bonds was indicted on what eventually has turned out to be 10 counts of perjury and one of obstruction of justice, for allegedly lying about the use of performance-enhancing drugs before a grand jury investigating the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative in sworn testimony on Dec. 4, 2003.

If there’s one thing we’ve learned from recent events, it’s that the federal government doesn’t take very kindly to be perjury.  This news makes it seem even less likely that Bonds will somehow be able to avoid a healthy prison sentence of some sort.

[Via MLB.com]

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: barry bonds, federal government, mlb, new york times, perjury, steroids

Baby Gets Crowd Pumped at Phillies Parade

November 14, 2008 By James View Comments

This is a couple weeks old now but I just came across and it’s pretty damned adorable, even if you’re not a Phillies fan (which I’m not).

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: baseball, mlb, parade, philadelphia, phillies, world series

MLB.com At Bat: Using the iPhone to Its Full Potential

October 11, 2008 By James View Comments

I promised myself no more iPhone posts for a while for fear I might start sounding like an Apple fanboy, but I feel compelled to respond to a baseless attack on one of my favorite apps, MLB.com At Bat.  I will also preface this with the fact that I work for MLB.com, although I have nothing to do with the department that developed or maintains the At Bat app, and to be honest, I don’t even know exactly who they are.

The problem is that I when I buy a new gadget I like to read up as much as possible on it and follow developing news.  Basically my RSS reader is filled with a ton of geek blogs.

After I bought my new iPhone 3G I did a scant bit of research and came across TIPB.  The scant bit of research was my first mistake.  This blog is to quality like Bush is to diplomacy.  They spend their time asking questions they should be answering,  scooping stories after about three other non-iPhone specific gadget blogs and littering their site with ads for iPhone accessories.  My first clue should have been when a blog has more ads than content on it’s front page, it’s probably not a very reliable source of facts.

Since buying my iPhone and many, many apps, I can say that without a doubt At Bat has consistently been one of my top three (usually top) used apps.  As a baseball fan this app is absolutely indispensable to me and now that I have it couldn’t imagine going through a baseball season without it.

TIPB seems to take umbrage with the fact that MLB has dropped the price of at bat from $4.99 to $2.99 for the remainder of the playoffs.  Their headline warns, “buyer beware”.

Why is it a bad deal? Because you have to buy MLB At Bat again next year! The current version of MLB At Bat will expire after the end of the season which is in approximately the end of this month.

MLB.com’s At Bat app is one of the few apps I’ve come across that actually uses the iPhone to it’s full potential.  At Bat not only gives you access to Gameday right on your phone but delivers full box scores, play by play summaries, video highlights of each game in practically real time and more right to your phone.  If you’re a baseball fan there is not even a question of whether or not this app is worth it.

Yes, you will have to buy At Bat at the beginning of each season but if you really expect video on demand highlights of 162 games to be delivered to your phone indefinitely for less than the price of a Starbucks cup of coffee then you’re not much of a business person and probably shouldn’t be putting your blog in the uncomfortable position of having to defend your baseless rantings.  Or maybe that’s presumptuous on my part.  Maybe they don’t care at all about the quality of articles they turn out as long as people are dumb enough to buy one of the fifty iPhone accessories ads littering their site.

Unlike many app developers out there that are pushing anything they can into the app store to try and capitalize on the demand for them, MLB has actually come up with a sophisticated, well thought out application that uses the iPhone 3G to its full potential.

Filed Under: Reviews, Tech Tagged With: apps, at bat, baseball, iPhone, mlb