Down the Left Field Line:
Life, Baseball & Eric Byrnes

We have just had inductions to the Hall of Fame and the ritual would not be complete without a mention of Pete Rose.

ROSE SHOULD BE IN THE HALL OF FAME. Yeah, he bet in baseball, but unlike the 1919 Black Sox, there is no evidence that he bet against himself or his team or otherwise did anything to throw a game.

Of course, it would have been better if he hadn’t gambled at all. Now he’s just a parody of himself hawking whatever he can sell. But I wonder if his ban hasn’t been lifted because of his attitude rather than his misdeeds. And if so, MLB should look itself in the mirror about its own attitude toward gambling. It’s a look different from the days when Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle were suspended from involvement in baseball because of their PR jobs with casinos that involved things like playing golf with the high rollers. Now you can go to Chase Field and watch the players drape themselves over the dugout fence that has VeeQuiva Casino written all over it.

Either Baseball gets the casino names out of its stadiums or it lets Pete Rose back in. I prefer the latter considering the Hall is full of reprobates who have done far worse things than waste money gambling.

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It’s a little late, I know, it’s been that kind of week. But congrats to Mark Buehrle of the Chicago White Sox for tossing MLB’s 18th perfect game. And Congratulations also to DeWayne Wise, the centerfielder who entered the game in the 9th inning as a defensive replacement, and made the catch that saved the perfect game, the no-hitter and the shut out. As is so often the case, when you go in as a defensive replacement, that ball finds you like a heat-seeking missile. Wise, who timed his leap perfectly, but hit the wall as he caught the ball, juggled it briefly but hung on.  Lesson for the youngsters — NEVER take your eye off the ball! The fact that Wise was looking at it the whole time gave him the opportunity to save the catch.

Buehrle has now thrown two no-hitters. Final Score: White Sox 5, Rays 0.

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It has been quite a few years since I have been able to watch the All Star Game. Until the middle of this past April, I was board-opping the KPFA Evening Newscast on Tuesdays, with the exception of 2007 when I was recovering from illness.

This year, when it dawned on me that I would be free to take in the game, the next question was how I would do so.  My TV, which began malfunctioning some time ago, is neither equipped with cable nor converter box to handle the recent transition to digital broadcasting. So I either had to listen to the game on ESPN Radio or opt for a webcast from MLB.com via Fox Sports on MSN.

I opted for the latter and was left wondering why Internet viewers were given the shaft. It was a good game, but I, with one game’s experience helping to produce a Spanish radio broadcast of an A’s-Diamondbacks interleague contest this year, could have done a better job producing the webcast. That’s how bad it was.

As is often the case with MLB.com, the chance to show off some fancy software was the main consideration. So, for those who wanted to watch in high-def-there was extra software to download and install. I don’t care one way or the other about hi-def and downloading and installing unfamiliar multimedia software is something  I did not trust me or my computer to do smoothly an hour before the game. I would be curious to know if anyone reading this did an install, how it went and what the results were.

Then there was the matter of choosing a camera angle. It turns out that instead of getting the centerfield camera most of the time, as is typical during the regular season games, one had to choose from a menu of camera angles; the angle you chose was the one you were stuck with until you manually chose another.

And it was as if the cameras were unstaffed, because they were very limited in their function. For example, I chose what I thought was the standard centerfield camera angle only to find that all it did was follow the pitcher. So when Ichiro opened the game with a single, I did not know where he hit it because the camera maintained focus on pitcher Tim Lincecum.

I then switched to a high view from behind homeplate to make sure I could see all the action. This move had a different disadvantage. The players were small; I was seeing them much as I would sitting in the third deck of the stadium.  This was problematic as the game wore on, because the audio feed of Joe Buck and Tim McCarver was applied inconsistently, and not at all after the top of the 7th. Normally, I would not complain about the absense of Joe Buck and Tim McCarver, but with all the substitutions that are made in an All Star game, it would have helpd to have announcers telling me who was playing where.

For some reason, there were no commercials on the webcast. Again this should not have been a cause for complaint but for the fact that the producer of the webcast did not seem to have a clue as to when to turn Buck’s and McCarver’s mics on and off, something that can be easily cued when you are running a commercial package between innings. Instead, we were treated to partial commercial announcements (audio only), technical talk among the announcers over what would happen next, or stadium background noise that unfortunately did not include a loud-enough PA announcer who could have solved my problem of discernng who was at-bat when there were no announcers to tell me.

There were also problems with dugout interviews with players who had exited the game. The first one, with A.L. starting pitcher Roy Halladay, went awry because the microphones didn’t work. The audio was fine on a later interview with Albert Pujols but I never saw it because I had not activated the NL dugout camera angle.

I am a former MLB.com subscriber. Given what I have seen with regular season games on the Internet, I simply don’t understand why ‘Netizens got such a raw deal on the All-Star game. Technically speaking, it did not have to be that way.

BTW, the AL won 4-3 in a tight game with several ties and lead changes. Too bad the quality of the webcast detracted so much from the game.

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for the D’Backs getting rid of Tony Pena, one of only two Diamondbacks pitchers with a winning record so far this year. (The other is Dan Haren). And the same two words go for saying that Felipe Lopez, the only hitter who is always around .300 is available.

FIRE SALE!

I said three years ago that it looked to me that the D’Backs front office was aiming at 2009 as the year to go for the World Series. The best laid plans of mice and men etc. A lot got in the way.

The proximate cause of this year’s terrible results is injury. Ten players going down with a viral infection during spring training was a harbinger of things to come. But the real trouble started when Brandon Webb went on the DL after making only lackluster start on Opening Day. Now he is not due back until September. The DL has also been populated by Chad Tracy, Chris Snyder, Conor Jackson and, for the second year in a row, Eric Byrnes.

Then there is the issue of lack of on-field leadership — the kind supplied in 2007 by Orlando Hudson and Eric Byrnes. Hudson is now a Dodger and Byrnesie, after losing most of 2008 to injured hamstrings, was tossed under the bus last December by Bob Melvin, presumably on order from GM Josh Byrnes. Then, possibly feeling the pressure and definitely being tooo stubborn to change his batting stance, he had a horrible start, even a horrible May, which heretofore had always been his best month. And then he was hit on the left hand with a pitch and it’s bye-bye till September. No one has really taken Hudson’s and Byrnes’  places as field generals.

Bob Melvin himself lost his job after it was obvious that the team was not hitting, pitching (except for Haren) or defending. (Even the usually reliable Byrnesie sometimes looked lost in the outfield and committed two errors in one game. Unheard of before this year.) The club could have used another hitting coach (Luis Gonzalez?) But why replace a manager who succeeded with essentially the same personnel in 2007, and replace him with a young man with no managerial experience?

The answer to the first question is that when a team goes bad, it’s easier to change the manager than the team.  As for Hinch, Melvin’s replacement, he was the team’s farm director and the FO has great faith in their vaunted youth movment. Hinch watched Young, Upton, Reynolds, Montero, Jackson, etc coming up.  The FO hoped that Hinch would get them out of their funk. But that may not be possible at the major league level.

Disregard Jackson for a moment because of his illness. I an thinking about Young, Reynolds, and to a lesser extent (for now) Upton. Reynolds and Upton were both forced into the majors from Double A because of injuries at the major league and Triple A levels. They did a decent job under the circumstances, but now their lack of much needed minor league experience really shows. Especially with Reynolds. The FO is enamored of him because he hits homers, but his strike outs and errors demonstrate that he still needs seasoning. It is a bit too early to tell about J-Up, but he may go the same way once the pitchers get more experience of him. He is striking out a lot also — though not as much as Reynolds — and this is a disturbing trend.  If he is, indeed, the next Ken Griffey, Jr.,  he’ll figure out how not to whiff so much, but he is still too young to be the field general the team needs if they are to be contenders. Reynolds and Upton needed some time in triple A, but after having been up in the Majors for several years, they weren’t going too be sent down this season.

But sending down might have been a good idea. Look at what happened to Valverde after he was sent down.

Young is also someone who might have benefited from another year in Triple A. He is not even at the Mendoza Line (.196 at of July 12). Another youngster on whom the FO hastily dropped a lot of money, and are keeping him up there to not admit that maybe they acted a little too quickly both in bringing him up and giving him that big contract. As a center fielder, he does not take charge the way he should, and that Is a big weakness in the team that was revealed with the departures of the agressive Hudson and Byrnes.

One only hopes that Gerardo Parra, batting a healthy .284, will not be ruined by a hasty injury-induced call-up. Pitchers are not immune and I hope Max Scherzer will not be ruined by arriving at the major league level too soon.

Some young players called up to early learn to thrive anyway. Upton MAY be such a case. We’ll see. Others stick around but never achieve their potential because coming up to soon is like trying to run before you learn to walk.

And some just don’t last in The Show for long.

The Diamondbacks look like they have too many players who came up too soon. And while we don’t now what their fates will ultimately be, we know one thing, The vaunted youth movement has failed tol become a winning team. So they are being broken up. But, in saying Lopez is available, it looks like the FO is taking it apart from the wrong end. Lopez is a veteran and the club needs veteran help.

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Last night, I dreamt that the Cardinals won the World Series.  I don’t know whom they were playing except that the other team had blue uniforms. And I don’t know how many games the Series lasted. Let’s see what happens.

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of the San Francisco Giants, who pitched the season’s first no-hitter last night. He struck out 11 and walked none, missing a perfect game only because of an error in the eighth inning.

Starting in place of the injured Randy Johnson, Sanchez was making his first start after being demoted to the bullpen. Aaron Rowand made a good catch against the wall in deep center field in the 9th, to preserve the no-hit bid. The last out was a called strike three against Everth Cabrera.

The Giants beat the Padres 8-0.

It was the first no-hitter since AT&T Park opened in 2000.

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Pitcher Dan Haren was a manager’s choice and outfielder Justin Upton was a player’s choice to be on this year’s NL All-Star team. J-Up is batting .300 with 45 RBIs and Danny is 8-5 with a 2.16 ERA and 119 K’s (as of the morning of July 6).

The game this year takes place at Busch III in St. Louis. Let’s hope Dan and Justin get to play.

Congrats to both!

Mark Reynolds is nominated for the NL’s final vote competition. Good Luck, Mark!

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For the second year in a row, Eric Byrnes has gone down with a serious injury. He fractured his left hand when he was hit by a p;itch in last night’s game. He is projected to be out 8 weeks.

Yeah, I know…he’s been having a poor year. But I don’t want to hear anything about his salary being a waste because he is missing so much time due to injuries. This wasn’t even a matter of his foolishly trying to play through an injury like last year’s hammies. This is just a (pun intended) bad break. Anyone can and does get hit by a pitch. With all those small bones in the hand, it is a wonder that fractures don’t happen more often.

Get well soon, Byrnesie!

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Randy Johnson got his 300th career victory on his first try at the mark, with a 5-1 win over the Washington Nationals in Washington. Congratulations, RJ!

Randy Johnson was a vital part of the 2001 Arizona DIamondbacks World Championship team, co-MVP of the World Series (with Curt Schilling) that year. He also tossed a perfect game in 2004 as a Diamondback.   But Johnson did not win #300 in a Diamondbacks uniform. The Front Office made him an insultingly low offer, even though they knew he was just 5 wins away from 300 entering this season, he offered to take a 50% pay cut to stay in Arizona, and his quest for 300 would put some extra fans in the seats, at least until he got the red-letter win. Johnson, who grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area then signed with the Giants.

Now there is word that the Diamondbacks management is planning to honor Johnson when the Giants visit Arizona this week.  After the lowball contract offer, a videotaped summary of his career played on the scoreboard, and a probable standing ovation by the fans just doesn’t cut it as an honor.

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The Diamondbacks beat the Braves 3-2 in 11 innings today.  The gamer was a single by ERIC BYRNES. Bit when I went to the official D’Backs website, at about 4:35 Pacific Daylight/Mountain Standard Time, I found the panel that decribed the game had a picture of Doug Davis -today’s starter and the Highlight corner featured an RBI single by Gerardo Parra…from yesterday’s game!

Cynical journalist’s first reaction is that this is another example of dissing Byrnesie! I could be wrong, but that is what it looks like to me.

What do you think?

Byrnesblogger1