Homers inside,Homers outside seal Bucco demise

Three Colorado home runs, 1 of which was of the inside the park variety and a run that was caused by an umpiring error added up to a Rockies 5-2 win over the Pirates in Denver.
The umpiring mistake did not cost the game,but did show that miscues can be costly.
The Colorado radio announcers thought that Wily Taveras was clearly out on a steal attempt at second,but was ruled safe.
Taveras then scored after taking off for third and Ryan Doumit's throw went flying down the third base line.
In the big picture,it made little difference.
In the small one,it is the type of mistake that a team such as Pittsburgh cannot afford to have made against them.
Ian Snell allowed four of the runs in six innings and watched his record spiral to 3-8.
Snell had control issues early,but did settle down a bit and pitching better in his later innings.
Of course after you are behind a few runs,the pressure is not as great.
Jose Bautista hit his 11th homer of the year in the third and Jason Bay's 6th inning sac fly accounted for the other run.
The series continues tonight at 8.

Pitching Matchup
Pittsburgh:Yoslan Herrera (0-0 12.46 ERA) at Colorado:Jorge De La Rosa (3-5 7.26 ERA) 8:05

Bullpen Notes

I know that usually when the matchups on the mound stand up this much it tends to not work out,but looking at the two starters seasons stats,it sure looks as tonight is going to take a lot of runs to win!

Brad Lincoln was roughed up in his Carolina League debut in Woodbridge against the Potomac Nationals as he allowed five runs in 4+ innings of work.
Lincoln will make his next start at home in Lynchburg.

Cleveland Browns training camp opens Wednesday and the news on Joe Jurevicious is not good as the wideout was placed on the physically unable to perform list.
This does not mean that the veteran has to miss any time in the regular season yet,but the likelihood is increased.
The news should increase the rumors of a trade with the Chargers for Eric Parker to cover the gap left by a possible long term injury to Jurevicious.

The Milwaukee Brewers were seen scouting the Oakland-New York series to take a look at Huston Street.
Could Billy Beane be at it one more time?
Would Milwaukee surrender former West Virginia third baseman Mat Gamel in the deal???

Photo Credit
Bautista:David Zalubowski-AP Photo

Cardenas to Oakland! Pirates lose in Colorado

Short post today as an attempt to fix the PC appears to have worked,but all programs and Firefox bookmarks needed to be reinstalled and I therefore want to keep things short.

One of our favorites is headed to one of our favorite teams as Adrian Cardenas was one of three Phillies to be shipped to Oakland for Joe Blanton yesterday.
Oakland continues to add talented young players and Adrian should do very well there.
Cardenas was hitting over .300 at High A Clearwater.
The other players involved in the deal were former Lakewood pitcher Josh Outman (at AA Reading) and outfielder Matt Spencer also at Clearwater.
Cardenas may have been my favorite visiting player ever and long time readers will remember Adrian giving me a cracked bat of his and signing it for me.
A good trade for the A's and this is going to be one fun team to watch in about two years!

The Pirates lost in Colorado to the Rockies 5-3 as the Rockies rallied to score the final five runs of the game to overcome a early Pittsburgh lead.
Pittsburgh scored three runs in the third as Nate McLouth scored on a wild pitch and Adam LaRoche's double scored Freddy Sanchez and Jason Bay to build the lead,but things were all downhill from there as Paul Maholm could not hold the lead (6-6) as he allowed 2 runs in the 4th and the game winners in the 6th.
I listened to the game on the Colorado network via XM and will do the same tonight,so I don't have the details or opinions from watching.

Pitching Matchup
Pittsburgh:Ian Snell (3-7 5.92 ERA) at Colorado:Glendon Rusch (2-3 6.25 ERA) 9:05

Photo Credits
Cardenas:John Setzler Jr
LaRoche:David Zalubowski-AP Photo

2008 Pirate Shadow Draft

I have had this lying around for the last few weeks and never got around to posting it.
Better late than never!

1st Round:Pedro Alvarez 3b Vanderbilt
2nd Round:Tanner Scheppers P Fresno State
3rd Round:Niko Vasquez SS Nevada High School
4th Round:Tim Melville P Missouri High School
5th Round:Justin Wilson P Fresno State
6th Round:Robbie Grossman OF Texas High School
7th Round:Eric Thames OF Pepperdine
8th Round:Christian Vazquez C Puerto Rico
9th Round:Matthew Hague 3b Oklahoma State
10th Round:Nick Maronde P Kentucky High School

It is ironic that I liked 5 of the Pirate picks and kept them for my own,but as of today only one of the five picks that we share have signed.

We will keep an eye on who signed and how they played sometime over the winter.

Photo Credit-Unknown

A day on the Indy circuit

I do not have the pictures for this yet,but I wanted to get this up and finished before the return of the Pirates tonight in Colorado.

I attended a CPW wrestling show a few weekends back in my first live wrestling show in about 13 years and had a few thoughts on it.
One,this is more like 1970's and 80's wrestling than the product shown on television today.
Two,the fans are worse than I remembered.
Three,for guys that are not getting paid a mint and do this for the love of the business,they certainly went all out to provide the audience with what they came to see.

Please keep in mind,I am not a huge fan of Independent Wrestling.
I find it hard to suspend temporary belief when the guys in the ring are the same fellows that you see working everyday jobs like the rest of us and when wrestling is at its best-that suspension of what wrestling is for a few hours is what makes it fun.
That said,the grapplers on this card in Riverbend Park did what they could do (sometimes well and sometimes not so well) to entertain a larger crowd than I expected and I would say most of the fans came away having had a good time.

Some things were right out of old school wrestling,guys belittling fans and telling them to shut up etc and were quite funny.
Others were not so amusing as fans getting overly liquored up and wanting to be part of the show instead of watching the matches.
The CPW wrestlers tended to keep the matches inside the ring and used more on the mat moves than the nationally known products and that tended to make the matches more slow paced and attempted to tell more of a story than the "crash television" that wrestling has become today.

CPW attempts to bring in one or two top names from the past to each show to attract the casual or old time fan.
On this day,Demolition Ax from the 80's and 90's WWF tag team champions was the star of the show.
This tends to bring in a few extra fans that may not usually attend,but might want to bring their kids or grand kids to see someone from their youth and considering the rural Virginia and West Virginia towns that CPW runs this is usually as big of a celebrity that these towns will ever have appear.

Is small time wrestling for everyone?
No,but for small towns that have little that come there and wrestlers that have no designs on ever being a full time star that wrestle for a few dollars and the chance to do what they enjoy best-it sure is.

Thanks to the CPW guys for giving me access to the card and giving me the chance to meet Ax (Bill Eadie) behind the scenes and add some cards to the collection.

The Pirates return to action tonight in Denver against the Rockies at 9.
I will be listening to the game via XM at work on the Rockies network.

Pitching Matchup
Pittsburgh:Paul Maholm (6-5 3.93 ERA) at Colorado:Ubaldo Jimenez (4-9 4.22 ERA) 9:05

Bullpen Notes

After his terrific performance against the Hagerstown Suns,Brad Lincoln was promoted to Lynchburg before yesterday's game in Frederick.
Lincoln joins the Hillcats to bolster their rotation for their second half title bid.
The Hillcats are just a half game behind first place Potomac and they visit the Nationals for a four game set that starts tonight.
Lincoln is scheduled to start the Friday game.

The parent club in Pittsburgh recalled Marino Salas for the 40th time this season from Indianapolis and returned Romulo Sanchez to the I-Tribe.
Salas will be in uniform in Denver tonight.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer has a look back at one of the coolest cards of the 70's and where Oscar Gamble is today.
The former Indian outfielder's 1976 Traded to New York card is representative of the hair style of its time for sure!

Until next time when we finally have a game to talk about!

Bobby Bonds for Bobby Murcer

Today I wanted to discuss the biggest one-for-one baseball trade of the '70s, although not the most influential to a kid from the '70s (who happens to write this blog), that is for another day.

In the winter of 1975, the New York Yankees swapped their most popular player Bobby Murcer to the San Francisco Giants for Bobby Bonds in a deal that involved two terrific outfielders who were disappointments to fans of the respective teams.
Murcer was heralded as the "next Mickey Mantle", while Bonds was regarded as the "next Willie Mays" and despite becoming terrific players, neither was able to live up to those high standards.
After all, those are two of the greatest players ever.

Murcer arrived in San Francisco at the age of 29 and had made the American League All-Stars for the previous four seasons.
Murcer's 1974 numbers were down from three terrific seasons previously but the numbers could have been affected by the Yanks' temporary move to Shea Stadium.
The lefty swing of Murcer produced many homers down the short right field line in the Bronx but was not enough to leave the park in the larger Shea.
Murcer's power numbers fell from 22 to 10 and his average tumbled 30 points as well.
Murcer had spent the season in right field after spending his career in center and the move likely did not help his adjustment to the larger confines of Shea Stadium defensively either.

Bonds appeared in Gotham at 29 as well and was a two-time National League All-Star member.
Please remember though the NL was the far superior circuit at the time and it was much harder to make an All-Star team in the National League than in the younger league.
Bonds numbers had slid a bit in 1974, but one could not expect less after just missing by one homer being the first man to ever hit 40 homers and steal 40 bases in one season in baseball history in 1973.
Bonds's average spiraled downward 27 points, his power numbers moved from 39 to 21 and his RBI totals dropped from 96 to 71.

So looking at this deal beforehand, Bonds hit more homers and stole many more bases than Murcer, but Murcer generally hit for a higher average and struck out far less than Bonds.
Both are the same age and except for the one-year stint in right for Murcer were center fielders.

Do you make this trade?
Honestly, looking at things from the 1975 perspective, I would be more likely to pull the trigger if I was getting Bonds than I would if I was getting Murcer, but I can see getting the more reliable Murcer than the boom or bust of Bobby Bonds.

Ironically, neither player was playing in their new home by 1978.
Bonds spent one season in New York in which his numbers looked great, but was never truly accepted by the Big Apple faithful in adding another 30/30 season with 32 homers and 30 steals and making the AL All-Stars.
Bonds was shipped to the California Angels after the season for two players that would figure prominently in the Yankees pennant-winning teams of the late 70s Ed Figueroa and Mickey Rivers.
Bonds would travel from team to team for the next few years going from the Angels to the Chicago White Sox to Texas to Cleveland putting up his usual numbers at all stops before finishing his career as a backup for the Cardinals and Cubs.

Murcer would make the NL All-Stars in 1975 in a .298 and 91 RBI season but hit just 11 homers.
Murcer changed his swing in 1976 and increased his power numbers by hitting 23 homers but watched his average plummet almost 40 points in doing so.
Murcer was sent to the Cubs in 1977 as part of a multi-player trade where the main return for the Giants was Bill Madlock, where he hit 27 homers before eventually returning to finish his career as a Yankee as a backup outfielder and pinch hitter.

In the end, both of these players are excellent, top-of-the-line players, but if I had to choose between them-I give the edge to Bobby Bonds.

A one-for-one trade of superstars in their prime does not happen much anymore, but when they do they always are remembered fondly.

Bullpen Notes

I admit I was a Bonds fan more than a Murcer fan when I was a young baseball fan.
My fondest memory of Bonds was a pregame hand slap during my first visit to Cleveland Stadium in 1979 as Bonds was spending his only season with the Tribe in what proved to be his last good season.

Take a look at the airbrushed hats on the 1975 cards of Murcer and Bonds that are pictured.
The trade happened late in the Topps press run and they had to settle for that instead of cards that showed them with the new caps on.

An excellent blog by Joe Posnanski on the Bonds-Murcer trade can be found here.

Look for the next poll to be on the Bonds-Murcer trade.

Billy Packer is out at CBS and Clark Kellogg is in?
I know many hate Billy Packer, but I have always enjoyed the honesty and candor of his work.
Plus living in MD, ACC fans got Packer way before the national fans as part of his terrific team with the late Jim Thacker on the Pilot Life ACC network.
Maybe sometime during hoop season, I will reflect on Packer and Thacker.

On the other hand, Kellogg is the basketball model of Jim Palmer in sounding like he is almost asleep.
I don't hate Kellogg, but far from a fan either.

Photo Credits Topps

Crawdads split DH with Suns,continue to own Hagerstown

The Hickory Crawdads continue to touch up their pending application on owning Municipal Stadium after splitting a doubleheader on getaway day in Hagerstown.
Hickory is now 10-2 in their last three visits to the Hub City after winning Game 1 8-1 and losing Game 2 in extra innings 6-5.

I don't plan on getting too detailed on the game itself,but rather concentrate on the evening and the Pirate minor leaguers that I saw over the series.
The evening was fun,my brother got to go on field and ham it up with the Suns guy with the microphone and I was able to sample some of the most revolting food known to man along with some pretty good stuff.
This was Feed Your Face Monday,so I decided to try as much on the menu as I could and try some food that I normally pass on.
This brought some good and bad stuff to the palate.
The good:The french fries were really terrific.Really good stuff.
If you try FYF night,try the fries.
Soft Pretzels and Popcorn are not bad either,especially the popcorn which is highly salted (which I like).
If you are attempting to keep your salt intake down,keep that in mind.
The Average:The nachos are OK,not great,but certainly nothing terribly wrong with them either.
The cheese saves the day in more ways than one.
The Bad:The popcorn chicken had the texture and taste of a burnt brick.
Awful and I had two witnesses that attempted them too,so that is not me on a tirade either.
The hot dogs are bad.
I mean really-Would you eat this??
No way around that unless you use the cheese from the nachos to disguise the taste of the dog.
The worst thing is that it seems like most dogs are badly undercooked and come with these bizarre looking red stripes all over it,which makes it look like something that the Cardassians cooked up on Deep Space Nine.
Things are improving with the food,but the finish line is a long way from arriving.

As far as the Crawdads go,another mixed bag.
Pitching wise,Brad Lincoln looked very sharp,Duke Welker was solid and Michael Felix pitched well in his two appearances,but I am not sure if the pitching was that good or a weakened Hagerstown lineup was that bad.

I talked to Felix before the series finale and discussed that some of the Lynchburg Hillcats had said that he had found his control in spring training and that they were surprised that he had been assigned to Hickory instead of Lynchburg.
Mike told me that was a good thing as shortly after the season had started his mechanics had went off kilter and it took a while for him and pitching coach Jeff Johnson to correct those issues.
Felix fired three shutout innings and earned the win in Game 1.

I really like Lincoln's stuff a lot and have higher hopes for his future than I did before the series.
A fastball that stayed in the neighborhood of 93 and a super breaking ball makes me cautiously optimistic about a breakout season next year.
I would like to see him use his change more,but for now I am pleasantly surprised about how nicely his fastball has returned.
A final note on Lincoln-there is no way that he is six foot as listed-5'10 is a better bet.
I stood right next to him and I had at minimum 2 inches on him and I am 6'1.

Welker pitched well against the Suns,but I am more reserved on the Duke.
The umpire appeared to have a generous strike zone on the night for Welker and Hagerstown's Colton Willems and when you combine that with a weak hitting team and far from overwhelming stuff to me the jury is still out.
I do look forward to getting a second look next season at the Arkansas product.

The position players are a point of concern.
Matthew Hague,a third baseman from Oklahoma State,continues his meteoric rise through the system as he hits everything hard.
Hague was hitting hard outs in the series and drilled a long homer in the visit as well.
Hague was a 9th round pick in the June draft and has already jumped State College.
I would even say Hague could make a Lynchburg visit,but the Pirates apparently are committed to keeping Jim Negrych in Lynchburg all season.

The other 2008 draftee is struggling a bit at the plate as third round shortstop Jordy Mercer (also from Oklahoma State) isn't adjusting to the SAL pitching as well as Hague.
Mercer seemed sure handed at short,but seemed to be bewildered with the wood.
His bat speed seemed fine,so I think that is not the issue.
I don't place too much on college players struggling initially as they have had a long season already,but I will keep an eye on Mercer's plate issues early next season.

I liked what I saw of catcher Andrew Walker,but he was injured in Game 2 and sat out the next two games.
Walker should be the Lynchburg receiver next year.

Other than outfielder Erik Huber,who showed some power flashes-Hickory's bats appear to be kinda weak as the final Ed Creech draft class begins to creep through the system.
A few things to have some optimism about,but overall,I am not too excited.

On the signing front

I was able to get everything signed by Hickory.
Brad Lincoln was super accommodating and Duke Welker signed everything as well.
Welker was not super chatty as he was the starter that day,but he signed for all.
Mike Felix and Charles Benoit talked a bit as they signed.
Benoit got his first look at his Lynchburg card from this season and showed the card to teammates.
Bobby Spain signed despite a cast on his hand in a very nice move and Jordy Mercer signed the only card that I had for him.
Some complained about Mercer,but he signed my card right away and gave me no problems,but I did see him not sign for others.

A funny note on the final night.
I had some extra stuff that needed to get signed so I deputized Corey to help out and he was down to just Hickory skipper Gary Green and tried to get him between games.
But as Green approached,Corey began to shout for "Bob".
After about five shouts for "Bob",I told Corey-"his name is Gary".
Laughter then ensued as Corey then laughed and asked rhetorically "where did I get Bob from"????
Corey consider yourself lucky-If I didn't have a Bob around already,you would have became Bob last night!!!!

I need just one Hagerstown player to finish the Suns set with the players that are on the roster.
Pitcher James Lehman is the only current need..

Until tomorrow.

Photo Credits
Crawdad logo-Hickory Crawdads
Cardassian Dog-Ryan Heimberger

One great win is worth the same as one bad loss

The title says it all as the Pirates erased the excellent and exciting rally from Saturday's win with a loss on Sunday led by the always explosive bullpen.

On Saturday night,the Pirates used an astounding late power surge with three home runs in the last innings to lift Pittsburgh to a stunning 11-10 win over the Cardinals.
Jason Michaels ended the game with a two run longball (4) to end the game in the 10th after the Cardinals had taken the lead in the top of the tenth.
Michaels shot foiled the St.Louis offense that pounded Pittsburgh pitching for 22 hits and was the third of the three seat shots that kept the Bucs in the game.
Jason Bay smacked the second of his two bombs (18 & 19) in the eighth to cut the lead to 10-6 and as part of a four run ninth that forced the extra frame,Nate McLouth slammed his 19th of the season.
Earlier in the game,Adam LaRoche hit his 11th of the season.
Bay finished the evening with five RBI in his season high.
The downside?
Yoslan Herrera was as ineffective as projected as he was pounded for six runs in four and a third innings and allowed 11 hits in the span.
The bullpen was bad as well,as the Pirates used six members of the pen and only two escaped without allowing a run.
Denny Bautista got the win (3-1) despite allowing a run in his only inning.
What a game!

The air went out of the tires just hours later as the Pirates continued their trend of falling behind,scrapping their way back into the game and watching the bullpen hand the game to the opposition.
The Cardinals leaped to a 4-1 lead,surrendered it and then used the appearance of "rubber armed" Franquelis Osoria to put the game away in a 11-6 St.Louis win.
Xavier Nady singled in Chris Gomez in inning number one for an early 1-0 lead and Ian Snell seemed to be sharp from the start.
That lasted three innings as the Cards scored 4 runs in the 4th with three of them on an Aaron Miles homer off Snell.
Snell would last five innings,allowing the 4 runs on five hits,walking three and whiffing an encouraging six batters.
The Pirates would tie the game in the fifth as Ryan Doumit doubled home Freddy Sanchez and Jason Bay then singled home Jack Wilson and Doumit.
Each team then swapped sixth inning runs as Sean Burnett allowed a run in his only inning,but was picked up by Chris Gomez's double that gave the Bucs a 6-5 lead.
But it was time for John Russell's favorite reliever Flammable Frankie Osoria to enter the game in the seventh and by the time Osoria left the game and recorded one out,the game was essentially over with the flammable one allowing four runs and the lead.
The Cards would add an insurance run in both the 8th and 9th to finish the contest.
Another winnable game that becomes a loss due to the bullpen and especially Osoria.
How much of this guy should we have to see????

Bullpen Notes

Sorry to hear about the passing of Bobby Murcer at 62.
Murcer was the star of the not so good Yankee teams of the late 60's and early 70's and is most remembered for his 1 for 1 trade to the Giants in 1975 for Bobby Bonds.
Look for a possible future post on the Murcer for Bonds trade as I love talking about the baseball for that time.

Wladimir Klitschko knocked out Tony Thompson in round 11 of a dull battle to retain his IBF Heavyweight belt.
The heavyweight division is just almost hard to watch.
Had Thompson thrown hard punches instead of being content to simply touch Klitschko,this could have been an interesting fight.

And finally in a dumb (yet expected) move,The New York Islanders fired
Ted Nolan as head coach.
Only a coach of Nolan's quality could have the less than talented team in the playoffs one year and contention the next and yet get fired.
The Islanders front office gets crazier by the second and dumber too.

Until tomorrow!

Photo Credits
Michaels:AP Photo-Gene Puskar
Murcer:Topps
Boxing:The SportingLife.com