Results tagged ‘ MLBlogs ’
More Random Angels, etc. Thoughts & Headlines
Thank you to all of you who drop by to read my blog and comment. I made the top 50 again, which is something I didn’t really except to accomplish at all and certainly not so soon after starting the blog. I really enjoy the conversation with you all, on my blog and on your blogs. You have helped make this offseason a lot more palatable. 
Orioles & Vlad Reach a Deal
I like Vlad Guerrero and wanted to see him get a good gig this year. I was thrilled to see that Vlad and the Orioles reached a deal today – $8 million for one season, apparently. Barring injuries, I think this is a good deal for both Vlad and for the Orioles. The Orioles were strong and building momentum at the end of last season and if they carry that over into 2011, Baltimore could be a fun place for Vlad to play and I think that having his bat in the lineup and his presence in the clubhouse can only be beneficial for the Orioles…and I’m not exactly sorry to see him out of the AL West either. While I miss him in the Angels lineup, I’m glad it worked out this way. It’s tricky and awkward to bring players back once they’re gone and, while there are certainly examples of times it has worked out well, bruised egos and bad attitudes coming from any number of directions can cause enough harm to outweigh any benefit to the decision. I am usually not in favor of it.
Angels aim to recapture road swagger
I was happy to see this article. Last season the Worst Road Trip Ever (in my mind it is spelled out in bold, title case just like that) where the Angels went 2 and 8 through Detroit, Boston and Seattle was one of the first indications that 2010 was not going to be a normal season. The Angels are traditionally a great road team and when that’s not working, nothing else seems to work either. Getting back to that, getting their swagger back as Torii Hunter says in the article, would help set a great tone for 2011. I realize that knowing a thing needs to be done and talking about doing it are both very different things from actually doing it. But I am happy to see the discussion anyway. It’s a start and it’s good to know that everyone acknowledges the issue and is on the same page.
MLB Network
It’s been fun having the MLB Network this offseason. It was not available as part of our TV package for the longest time and then it just appeared on the menu last season sometime in July. A Cal Ripken Jr. interview from last year here, a couple of episodes of the Top 10 Right Now there (I’m better at guessing the top 5 than my husband, bwa’ha ha). It helps with the offseason impatience when Spring Training is right there around the corner except I’m not going again this year anyway so baseball is actually still a couple of months away. Granted I’ve been enjoying it a little too much in the wee hours of the morning lately, but if one is suffering from insomnia anyway, well, it sure beats infomercials and old Law and Order reruns.
On a personal note, I am off on a whirlwind one-day turn around trip to Las Vegas tomorrow for my little sister’s wedding. I’ve mentioned her in the blog a few times. She’s marrying a great guy who loves her very much and only has one major flaw, as near as I can tell: he’s not a baseball fan. He’s a NASCAR guy. Consequently, my bleeding Dodger Blue sister is becoming a NASCAR girl. Oh well . Congratulations Sis! I wish you every happiness. Just try not to drift so far to the NASCAR side of things that we can’t text our way through the playoff games again the next time SoCal is doubly represented.
Funny story about my sister: she ignored my Angels fandom for a few years, then accepted it but with an odd certainty that if I ever had to choose, I would root for the Dodgers…right up until the Freeway Series last year. Seth (my husband) and I went to the Saturday night game at Dodger Stadium. My sister and I exchanged texts off and on during batting practice:
My Sister: You’re at the game! I’m so jealous!
My Sister (this text following right on the heels of the previous text): Wait…what are you wearing??
Me: Clothes.
My Sister: No, what _color_ are you wearing, smart ***?
Me: *bats eyes innocently* Red of course.
My sister: (long string of cartoon swear words)
My sister (next text after a pause of at least 15 minutes): I suppose you’ve got to support your team, Sis, good for you. Just stay away from the left field bleachers in that color.
MLB Network’s 16th Greatest Game & How the Twins Brought Work to a Halt
Monday nights are extra busy in my house so I have managed to miss the first four games in the MLB Channel’s 20 Greatest Games in the last 50 years series. But the stars aligned tonight and I caught the program on game #16 – the Twins/Tigers one game playoff to determine the 2009 AL Central champion. I was surprised that MLB.com chose such a recent game, but I remember that one very well and, indeed, what a game!
I “watched” that one, which is a completely different thing from watching a game. In 2009 I was still working in the Mortgage industry for a bank recently purchased from the FDIC. If you know anything about the Mortgage meltdown in Southern California, you can probably figure out which one I am talking about and if not, well, suffice to say I had more of a front row seat than I wanted for the whole thing.
Anyway, my department was full of Angels fans and a department both pumped for the game and divided on who to root for…divided over who would best serve the Angels by beating the Yankees in the playoffs, that is. The Twins never beat the Yankees in the post season but they were just so scrappy that it was hard for some of us, myself included, not to root for them. The rest were sure the Tigers had the best chance. The problem was that my department always worked really late, especially at that time, and this was a Midwest game so there was no way any of us were getting home to see any part of it.
So, I was sneaking peaks at the game on my Blackberry as I worked, per my habit in those days, and a couple of my colleagues were checking in from time to time to get the score, per their usual game day habit. The other baseball fans all had company Blackberries, you see, while I only had my personal Blackberry, and company Blackberries had all sports sites blocked. Everything was calm through the 3rd inning with the Tigers comfortably in the lead, but then the Twins started to catch up. Suddenly people are working less and less and checking in more and more and then my boss came striding out of his office and up to my cubicle…no worries, this was standard procedure as well. He just wanted to know the score and get a quick play by play on the last inning.
As you probably remember, it was a heck of a game. The Twins tied it up then, in the 9th, the Tigers pulled into the lead and the Twins tied it up again. By the time the game went into the 10th inning, all pretense of working was gone and everyone had switched to rooting for the Twins. We moved into one of the larger cubicles by playing off of the Minnesota pride of one of the generally non-baseball fan team members and were alternately biting our nails and yelling and cheering as the score seesawed from 4-4 to 5-5. Around the 11th inning, we became refresh monkeys – the 15 second auto refresh rate on the Gameday site was no longer sufficient. When the Twins pulled it off, it was a good thing we were the only team left in our wing because it sounded more like a sports bar than the headquarters of a mortgage bank…and then we went back to work. We repeated this routine for the east coast playoff games until the Yankees took the Angels out of the mix and it was a blast. (I don’t regret rooting for the Twins either, even as things turned out. I don’t think the Tigers could have stopped the 2009 Yankees either. That team was tight and seriously on a mission.)
I do not miss my old job. I worked with good people and had a great run of it but I don’t have the stomach to deal with the volatility of the Dread Pirate Mortgage Banking Industry anymore – Goodnight Blithescribe. Good work. Sleep well. We’ll most likely lay everyone off in the morning. I really love my newer job and I work with great people here too…they’re just more basketball and soccer fans. But sometimes I really do miss the baseball season camaraderie of a department full of Angels fans. However, the job change is part of the reason I started lurking on MLBlogs and eventually blogging myself. It’s funny how well things work out sometimes.
This is a very simple game...
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