I just wanted to post this really quickly before retiring for the night. Look at those stats – take in the full awfulness of Rickie Weeks’ season so far. I watched him step up to the plate five times today during my visit to Miller Park, and each at-bat was worse than the one before.

It’s not just Weeks either – other than Ryan Braun and Jonathan Lucroy – this team blows. See Weeks’ OBP up on that scoreboard?  Three other starters (Cesar Izturis, Nyjer Morgan,  and Aramis Ramirez) have even lower on-base percentages.  But Morgan had 3 hits and 2 runs today, and Ramirez hit a 2-run home run (Izturis sat out until the 9th inning) – Weeks  was painfully hacking at any pitch, with no clue how to make contact with the ball.   I don’t know what’s wrong with him, but I hope he sorts things out soon – not only is it dragging the team down, it’s also just really, really sad to watch.

He struck out again about a minute after I took that picture.  More from me and Miller Park next week.

The Boone family has been a major part of baseball for seven decades. The clan was the first to send three generations to the All-Star game. They are also descendants of pioneer legend Daniel Boone.

The first Boone to play in the big leagues was Ray Boone who played with Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, Kansas City, Milwaukee, and Boston from 1948 to 1960. He finished his career with a .275 BA, 151 Home Runs, and 737 RBI. He was selected to the All-Star team in 1954 and 1956 and was a member of Cleveland’s World Championship team in 1948.

The son of Ray, Bob Boone played with the Philadelphia Phillies from 1972-1981, the California Angles from 1982-88, and the Kansas City Royals from 1989-90. Over his 19-year Major League career, Boone was a four time All-Star, a seven time Gold Glove winner, and played on Philadelphia’s World Championship team in 1980.

Bob’s sons Bret and Aaron Boone followed their father into the Majors, first with Bret’s arrival in 1992. Bret was the first third-generation big leaguer in baseball history. He played from 1992-2005 for the Mariners, Reds, Braves, Padres, and Twins. He was a three time All-Star selection, winner of four Gold Glove awards, and two Silver Slugger Awards.

Aaron Boone played from 1997 to 2009 for the Reds, Yankees, Indians, Marlins, Nationals, and Astros. The highlight of Aaron’s career was an 11th inning home run he hit off Tim Wakefield during Game 7 of the ALCS, which won the game and the series for the Yankees.

Pardon my naivete, for I am no doctor, but I have a few questions regarding yesterday’s injury news regarding Carl Crawford and Michael Pineda.

Question The First: Carl Crawford is supposed to pay a visit to Dr. James Andrews to get a second opinion on his elbow. Given Dr. Andrews’ long, peerless history in dealing with arm issues among Major League baseball players, why the hell didn’t they go to him for the first opinion? Wouldn’t that had saved everyone a bunch of time?  Because – though I warmly welcome a Red Sox line-up that is at less-than full strength - this Carl Crawford business has just gotten really, really sad and it would be nice to see him back on the field, where his fragile psyche can continue to be destroyed by the boos of Red Sox fans.

Okay, maybe he’s better off just not playing.

By the way, Bobby Valentine said this yesterday: ”I haven’t heard any reason that there’s surgery, a surgical procedure, being necessary,” said Valentine. “I haven’t heard that. Hope not.”

See you in 2013, Carl.

Question The Second:  This one’s not too dissimilar from the first.  Michael Pineda reported discomfort in his shoulder back in spring training.  The Yankees wisely shut him down at that point.  On Saturday, his first extended spring training session was cut short after 15 pitches, when Pineda reported weakness in his shoulder.  That turned out to be a torn labrum, which will keep him out for an entire year, and – due to the amount of time needed to fully recover from such an injury – will likely mean that it’ll be 2014 before he’s back at full strength.

Oh yeah, I had a question.  Here it is: how thorough were those tests on Pineda’s shoulder back in spring training?  The Yankees say they believe the labrum tear occurred on Saturday, but surely there must have been signs that the labrum was on its way to tearing.  It seems odd to me that someone can experience an injury that – to my admittedly totally untrained eye – seemed like a season-ender at the time, but then several weeks go by and – lo and behold – now he suddenly has a season-ending injury.

(Here’s where I remind everyone that – since March – I’ve been telling every baseball fan within earshot that the Pineda/Montero trade and the signing of Hiroki Kuroda were mistakes by the Yankees.)

Basically, it just seems like these two stories have been foregone conclusions for a while now, and the delay in reaching these conclusions has been extremely detrimental to the players involved.

BONUS QUESTION:  I know that Andy Pettite’s on his way to save the Yankees, but – given the continued struggles of Philip Hughes and Freddy Garcia, along with the fact that no one knows how Pettite will fare after being away for so long – how soon before the Yankees throw a bunch of money at Roy Oswalt in order to convince him to not wait until midseason to sign with a team?

Grover Cleveland Alexander was born in Elba, Nebraska, on February 26, 1887, during the first term of U.S. President Grover Cleveland. He was one of thirteen children. It has been rumored that Alexander developed his accuracy as a child by throwing rocks at birds, which – due to his family’s extreme poverty – was he and his siblings’ only source of food.

Cleveland’s career began when he signed his first semi-professional contract at age 20 in 1907 for $50 per month. He had a good start to his career, which almost ended abruptly in 1909 when he was struck in the head by a thrown ball while running the bases. Alexander remained unconscious for two days after the incident – upon waking up, he suffered from double vision. By the 1910 season, Grover was fully recovered and become a star pitcher again, but was sold to the Philadelphia Phillies for $750 prior to the 1911 season.

Alexander made his official Major League debut on April 15, 1911 with the Philadelphia Phillies. In his rookie year, Alexander led the league with 28 wins, 31 complete games, 367 innings pitched, and seven shutouts, while finishing second in strikeouts and fourth in ERA. From 1912 to 1920, Alexander led the league in ERA, wins, complete games, and shutouts five times, innings pitched and strikeouts six times. He won pitching’s elusive Triple Crown in 1915, 1916, 1917 and 1920.

After the 1917 season,  Phillies owner William Baker was in need of money, so Alexander was sold to the Chicago Cubs. Because of the United States involvement in World War I, Alexander spent most of the 1918 season in France as an artillery officer, where he suffered from shell shock and partial hearing loss, to go along with the epileptic seizures that had already been plaguing him.

Alexander, who grew up in a family of alcoholics and was always a drinker himself, hit the bottle particularly hard after the war. Despite his drinking, he still managed to give Chicago several successful seasons. But by 1926 the Cubs finally had enough of his alcoholism and insubordination, and sold him to the Cardinals in the middle of the season.

Grover Cleveland Alexander’s arrival in St Louis would help the Cardinals win the National League pennant, sending Alexander and the Cardinals on to meet the New York Yankees in the 1926 World Series.

Alexander – now 39, hardened, and grizzled by a life on the road and constant drinking – would go on to pitch complete game victories in Games 2 and 6. The Game 6 victory enabled the Cardinals to tie up the series and force a Game 7. Jesse Haines started the game for the Cardinals but was forced to leave the game in the seventh inning due to a nasty blister. When Haines was removed from the game, the Cardinals had a 3-2 lead. Alexander was called in to face Yankee slugger Tony Lazzeri with the bases loaded and two outs. Alexander pitched brilliantly, striking out Lazzeri to end the inning, then held the Yankees scoreless for two more innings to preserve the win and make the Cardinals the 1926 World Champions.

Grover had one last 20-win season for the Cardinals in 1927, but his heavy drinking finally ended his professional career in 1930. Over the course of 20 seasons, Alexander pitched for the Phillies, Cubs, and Cardinals, amassing 373 wins to go along with 208 losses. Grover also had 2,199 strikeouts while only giving up 953 walks, finishing with a 2.56 ERA, and a ridiculous 90 career shutouts.

Grover Cleveland Alexander was the only player elected to the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame in 1938. At the time he was pitching for the House Of David barnstorming team, which often competed against the best semi-pro and Negro League teams. Just a few weeks after attending Game 3 of the 1950 World Series, Alexander died from heart failure in St. Paul, Nebraska at the age of 63.

In 1952, the biographical film, “The Winning Team”, was released. Former U.S. President Ronald Reagan played Grover Cleveland Alexander in what baseball commentator Bill James called “an awful movie, a Reader’s Digest movie, reducing the events of Alexander’s life to a cliché.” Alexander is the only player in history to be named after one former president and portrayed in a movie by another former president. In 1999, Alexander was ranked number 12 on The Sporting News list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players, and was a nominee for the Major League Baseball All-Century Team.

B.J. Upton – the subject of our very first post – returns to the Rays line-up today after recovering from his collision with Desmond Jennings during a spring training game.  In this most important of seasons (i.e. his contract year), will we finally get to see B.J. realize the potential that he’s been intermittently teasing Rays fans with for the past 8(!) years?  Ha! No, of course not – he will continue to dazzle with his graceful defense, then confound us with his laid-back toss to the shortstop while the runner tags from first to second.

That look that he gives to the umpires after a called third strike – that look that combines surprise, anger, condescension, and a wee bit of sadness – that look is the B.J. Face.  It’s the same face that I make at least 3 times a week while watching B.J. play.  For every called third strike, every baserunning error, and every lackadaisical lob of the ball back into the infield while there are runners on the base, I make the B.J. Face.   But as frustrating a player as he may be, there’s no one else I want in center field for the Rays or batting second in the order, hopefully to resume the hot bat he displayed when he was placed there towards the end of last season.

Welcome back, Bossman.

Prior to the start of the season, I found myself in downtown Louisville on a mild afternoon with time to kill. I used that time to pay a visit to the Louisville Slugger Museum on Main Street. Here are some pictures and random thoughts from that day.

First, the exterior.  As you can see, there’s a giant bat out front, which makes it really easy to find when you’ve forgotten to charge your phone the night before and don’t want to waste battery life (which comprises about 8 minutes total on a 4G phone) on GPS.  Just go downtown and look for the big bat – it’s that easy.

Along the way towards the museum is the Walk Of Fame, which runs intermittently from Louisville Slugger Field at one end of Main Street to the museum at the other end.  Each bronze bat and plate features information on a Louisville Slugger-approved (i.e. had a contract with) Walk Of Famer.  Babe Ruth has one.  So does Ted Williams.  Willie Mays – who used bats from the rival Bryn Mawr Bopper Company* – does not.

(*maybe)

Once inside the museum (and before you have to pay, so you can see this for free if you’re feeling frugal), you are greeted with a large wall featuring the wood-burned signatures of every MLBer that has signed a contract with Louisville Slugger.  Yes, that’s THE Tom O’Malley over on the center-right!  If you look straight up from the center, you’ll see Dale Murphy’s signature, which was the reason I took the picture (it was pretty high up, too – this was the best angle I could get).  Does he have a plaque outside on the Walk Of Fame?  No, of course not, because – as with the Hall Of Fame in Cooperstown – enshrinement is determined by incompetent fools.

Admission is only $11 and includes a tour of the factory.  The bats for the Major Leaguers are made one player at a time, customized to each player’s specifications.  On the day I was there, they were busy making bats for Joey Votto.  Towards the end of the tour, they let us dig into a basket featuring the nubs that are cut from the top of the bats prior to sanding.  So I might have a Joey Votto nub.  Good for me.

Alas, you’re not allowed to take pictures during the factory tour, which is a shame, mainly because there was a lady on the tour with an absolutely fantastic ass and I really would have liked to have kept a visual record of that.  Mmmm, damn.

The factory tour lasts a tad less than a half-hour and concludes with a free mini bat(!) before you are free to roam the museum area.  Compared to a place like Cooperstown, it’s a small exhibition space, but it’s filled with terrific information and memorabilia, like the Pine Tar bat and the Honus Wagner bat pictured above (he was the first player to endorse Louisville Slugger).  And, in case you forget that you’re touring a bat company, just look up:

Let’s look at more bats.  Because this took place six weeks ago and my memory is hazy, I’ll say that this is one of the bats that Joe DiMaggio used during his streak, if not the one used for the 56th-and-final game of the streak.  Whether it’s the last one or one from the middle of the streak, it would still look like this:

During Babe Ruth’s 1927 season, he would make a notch around the logo of the bat for every home run he hit.  Here’s one notch-filled bat from that record-breaking season:

And because I’m a homer, here’s an Evan Longoria bat:

Once you get sick of looking at bats, you can switch your attention to freakishly-realistic wax sculptures of Derek Jeter (at the top of this post), Ted Williams, Babe Ruth, and – below – Ken Griffey Jr.  I can’t stress enough how freaky they look.

Here’s the Babe Ruth one:

When I was taking this picture, an employee came up to me and said that I could touch The Babe’s skin if I wanted to.  I touched it.  It felt skin-like.  Then the guy said that – if I wanted – I could touch him, too.  Things got weird after that.

There’s an upstairs area in the museum as well, but that appeared to only be accessible to staff members.  At certain angles, though, you could see some of the items exhibited upstairs, like this strange display from the company’s brief, disastrous foray into making catching equipment out of glass:

That’s all from the Louisville Slugger Museum.  If you happen to be passing through town, and have 90 minutes and 11 bucks to spare, it’s definitely a visit worth making.

This year’s field trips:
- Comerica Park (First and Second visit)

Last year’s field trips:
- Fenway Park
- Skydome
- Coca Cola Field
- Cooperstown (Exhibits And Plaque Gallery)
- Yankee Stadium
- Nationals Park
- Turner Field

“Your Holiness, I’m Joe Medwick. I, too, used to be a Cardinal.” – Medwick to Pope Pius XII

Joe “Ducky” Medwick holds the honor of being the last National League player to win the Triple Crown, which he accomplished in 1937.  Medwick played for 17 seasons, ending with a career .324 batting average. His best years were as a member of the St Louis Cardinals, whom he played for from 1932 to 1940, then 1946-1947. As a member of the “Gas House Gang” he helped the Cardinals win the World Series in 1934.

Medwick was born in New Jersey, where his parents had immigrated to from Hungary. Artist Lori Barrata’s fine portrait of him still hangs in Borough Hall in Cartert, New Jersey.  When Medwick came up with the Cards in 1932 fans gave him the nickname “Ducky” for the way he waddled as he walked. But his fierce power and all around hitting ability soon landed him the nickname “muscles.”

There were two majors highlights in Medwick’s years with the Cardinals. The first was during the 1934 World Series against the Detriot Tigers. During the seventh game Medwick smashed a triple – when he slid hard into third base, the Detroit fans began pelting him with garbage from stands. The reaction of Tiger fans forced baseball commissioner, Kenesaw Mountain Landis – who was at the game – to have Medwick pulled from the game for his own safety. When asked about the incident, Medwick replied, “Well, I knew why the Tiger fans threw that garbage at me. What I don’t understand is why they brought it to the park in the first place.”

Joe Medwick was named to the All-Star team ten times in his career, but his best season was in 1937. That year Medwick hit .374/ 31HR/ 154 RBI, which led to him winning the Triple Crown and the NL Most Valuable Player Award. Over his career – in which Medwick played for the Cardinals, Brooklyn Dodgers, and New York Giants – he hit .324/205 HR/ 1,383 RBI. Unfortunately for Medwick, his career was never the same after he was nearly killed after he took a ball to the skull that was thrown by his former Cardinal teammate, Bob Bowman, six days after Medwick had been traded by the Cards to the Dodgers in 1940.

Medwick was voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1968, a year before he died of a heart attack in St. Petersburg, FL. In 1999, Medwick was ranked 79th in The Sporting News list of Baseball’s Greatest Players.  He was also a finalist for the Major League Baseball All-Century team, and named New Jersey’s Athlete of the Century as the 20th Century came to a close.

Because I had so much fun the first time, I nabbed a cheap ticket from Stubhub, took an ‘extended’ lunch break from work, and headed back to Comerica Park on Tuesday afternoon. Even better: I got to see the Rays again for the first time in three years.

And it snowed! The game time temperature was 43 degrees, but it felt a lot colder than that.  Flurries came and went throughout the game, with a brief period of heavier snowfall around the 8th inning, which made it worth all the shivering.

The Rays were all wearing ski caps (or toques or toboggans or whatever) during batting practice, and their jackets covered their jersey numbers, so I couldn’t make out who was who. Is that Evan Longoria in the picture above? Ben Zobrist? Fernando Rodney? We’ll never know.

One more Todd Kalas pic, as he prepared to put on his . . . something. Myself and the guy sitting next to me – a very nice Reds fan from Indiana who chatted with me throughout the game – waved in the background while Todd was doing his segment, but I have no idea if we ended up on TV or not. Do I still have just one solitary baseball TV appearance, when me and my sister sat right behind home plate during a spring training game between the Reds and the Braves in the mid-80′s whose broadcast my dad recorded so that could see ourselves on TV? Probably.

As for the game itself: it felt weird rooting against a team just three days after rooting heavily for them (totally justified because they were playing the Red Sox), but there was no way I wasn’t going to pull for the Rays. And things looked tenuous for them throughout. Matt Moore pitched well, but not great, though he managed to allow only 2 runs before giving way to a bullpen that allowed three more. The Rays offense was back to their old selves – with a bottom of the line-up that has zero ability to get on base – so once the Tigers scored those extra runs, the game was all-but over.

But hey, it snowed!

More pictures can be found over at our Flickr page.

Related:
Let’s Go To Comerica Park

Last year’s field trips:
- Fenway Park
- Skydome
- Coca Cola Field
- Cooperstown (Exhibits And Plaque Gallery)
- Yankee Stadium
- Nationals Park
- Turner Field

This past Saturday, I made my way over to Comerica Park to catch the Tigers and Red Sox play their second game of the season. It was a terrific game (as is always the case when a team completely destroys the Red Sox) in a terrific ballpark. Here are some pictures and random thoughts from The House That Ruined Juan Gonzalez:

- Comerica Park has the feel of an old-time park while still maintaining some of the theme park garishness expected out of modern ballparks (i.e. giant tiger sculptures, ferris wheels, and Ernie Harwell statues). Somehow, this all blends in very well together and enhances the whole experience.  And I know it’s in Detroit – which instantly makes too-many people think of a bombed-out hellscape – but the area around the park is quite nice, too, with Ford Field at one end and the gorgeous Fox Theater at the other (and a bunch of other great places – from casinos to the opera house – nearby).   I’ve been working in Detroit for a little over two weeks now, and have completely fallen for the greatness of this city.  Ignore all the negativity and pay the town and the ballpark a visit – you’ll be glad you did.

- With all that being said, though, these things belong in a bombed-out hellscape:

- Here’s a plaque for Ty Cobb that’s along one of the outside walls at Comerica.  ”A Genius In Spikes – An Asshole In Skin”

- Ballpark food:  I had two Coney dogs.  The whole “Coney” thing in Detroit confused the hell out of me for a little while, but it’s essentially a hot dog with onions and “meat sauce” (or bean-less chili).  They were okay – the meat sauce was tasteless.  Nationals Park was in-no-way threatened of losing it’s “Carl’s Favorite Place For Ballpark Food” crown.

- Here’s the merry-go-round that’s in the middle of the food court:

- And here’s the ferris wheel.  Not pictured: the Tilt-A-Whirl, the Gravitron, and the Brandon Inge Dunking Booth.

- A very-nice view from home plate.  That scoreboard is about as HD as HD gets – the decay on Jim Leyland’s face was crystal clear.

- Over in right-center field are statues for several Tiger greats, like Willie Horton, Hal Newhouser, Al Kaline (pictured at the top of this post), and Hank Greenburg (pictured below).  Sadly missing from the statue area: Alan Trammell and Lou Whitaker.  They’re missing from everywhere else, too – really, I was a bit bummed to see so little recognition around the ballpark for two all-time greats (who should be in the Hall Of Fame, but I’ll stay away from that topic for the sake of my blood pressure).

- Here’s a tiger’s butt.

-  Again, I really enjoyed the game.  Led by two home runs each from Miguel Cabrera and Prince Fielder (and one more from Alex Avila), the Tigers destroyed Josh Beckett and the Red Sox, 10-0.  After Cabrera’s second home run, the spray from the fountains in center field (behind the Chevrolet sign, they go off with every Tigers run) caught the light just right, creating a pretty rainbow.  Even God loves it when the Red Sox get clobbered!

- After the game, I was convinced of two things:
(1) The Tigers (and Miguel Cabrera in particular) are gonna destroy the rest of the American League consistently.
(2) With such a talented team playing in such a terrific ballpark, it’s a great time to be a Tigers fan.

More pictures can be found over at our Flickr page.

Last year’s field trips:
- Fenway Park
- Skydome
- Coca Cola Field
- Cooperstown (Exhibits And Plaque Gallery)
- Yankee Stadium
- Nationals Park
- Turner Field

About an hour into today’s Rays-Tigers game at Comerica Park, I turned around in my seat and saw that Rays broadcaster Todd Kalas was standing right behind me. He did a segment about the Rays dealing with the cold weather (it was 43 degrees at game time, and flurries fell throughout), then put that blue thing on. He said we was going to watch the rest of the inning while wearing it, but he took off after a couple minutes. When he got up to leave, we made eye contact. He tipped his mic towards me and smiled. *SWOON*

More tomorrow. Not about Todd Kalas – about the game and the Tigers and Comerica Park.