From Rotoworld:

Bret Boone revealed Monday than an alcohol problem contributed to him walking away from the game two years ago.
Boone had gotten to the point where he would drink 12-15 beers after a game. "I don't want to make a big deal about it, but I was at a point where sometimes it was more important to me to go to a hotel bar after a game," he said. "At the end, it takes away your passion and everything inside that makes you tick. I'm not proud of it. I'm proud I took care of the situation before it got to a point where it could have." Boone said he hasn't had a drink in seven months.

Could this have actually affected his play? If so, I'm kinda pissed, since we paid him well to play for us.

Jim Street sez Bedard told the Orioles it would take a 7 year $100M dollar deal to keep him in Baltimore. Would he go for the same sort of extension offer from us? Is that too many years for a guy coming off an injury?                                                                                                      

I totally pwned David J. Corcoran on the Mariners trivia on Facebook. This may be the greatest accomplishment of my short and uninspiring life.

300 character fun fact: The '95 Mariners were 18-23 in one-run games.                                

From Over The Monster:

"Look guys, we're down three in an ALCS.  So what?! This is how we roll.  You know, to make it interesting and stuff.  Let the Rockies have their sweep.  BOOOOORRRRRRINNNGGG.  No, it's like the Mighty Casey...you spit on a few pitches before you send one out of the park."

They've clearly never read or heard the poem Casey at the Bat, and yet they reference it.

http://sports.espn.go.com/chat/sportsnation/face/mlb/index

Come on, Derek. Felix will be the man some day, but right now when most people think "Mariners," it's Ichiro. It's sad to say, but there are a good many people in Seattle who still wouldn't recognize Felix if they saw him on the street.                                                                                                        

Every time I leave the country, the Mariners tank. My plane touched down in Europe on the morning of the 13th and the Mariners haven't won a game since. I knew this was going to happen, yet still I went. I offer my sincerest apologies, and hope Ichiro takes into consideration that I won't be leaving net year when he decides whether or not to resign.

What is wrong with these people? Is there something weird in the water down there? I used to think very highly of the city of San Diego, but their fans' reaction to this series has been Halos Heaven-esque.

When the Mariners have a bad series, we criticize our own team for being so bad that they lost.

When a SoCal baseball fan's team loses a series, he criticizes the opposing team for being so bad that they won. When you go south of the Bay, do you enter some kind of Bizarro World where this makes sense?

P.S.: Still don't think the NL lacks talent? Texas wins a series against the team that leads the NL Central and Kansas City wins a series against a team with a winning record against NL opponents.

Derek Jeter just made a throwing error on a double play chance which gave the Red Sox the lead and got Doug Mientkiewicz injured. The Fox announcers blamed the play on Robinson Cano and complimented Jeter's defense.                                                                                                                                                                                                            

Since getting the tying run to the plate and the having your worst ABs of the night is a recurring theme of the 2007 Mariners, I think we need a specific image to represent it.

I'd recommend that someone modify in some fashion this image I found of Jay Buhner homering in game 3 of the '95 ALCS. It was the most false hope I've ever felt:

The Mariners have played like shite and they're 1/2 game out of first. Anaheim and Oakland have the injury excuse. If our GM wasn't so monumentally stupid, we'd be comfortably on top right now. I hope that dufus dies in a fire. Without the crap call at second we'd have lost 4 in a row and five of six. 85 wins will probably be enough this year. Too bad we won't even be close.

And why do I go there? Every time I go, when I'm not taking Tylenol for the headache it gives me, I'm freaking out for fear that I've entered some kind of Bizarro world or parallel reality. Rev's mos recent post:

"According to ESPN, Troy Glaus has a bone spur on his heel and has been placed on the Disabled List.

Now we are REALLY in trouble!

Oh wait... Bill Stoneman saw this coming and dumped Mister Fragile a few years back... Whew!"

So...Bill Stoneman was going to sign Glaus long term, then he looked into the future and said to himself, "This guy's going to have two seasons close to forty homers and a .900 OPS, but in that third season he's going to be on the DL for a couple of weeks! I'd better let that guy go."

Bavasi is bad, but at least the Rev isn't our GM.

He's now the bench coach, and has a lot of history with the organization. Is he being set up to replace Hargrove?                                          

According to Ken Rosenthal on foxsports.com, the Mariners are close to signing Miguel Batista.

http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/6259574

The World Series is practically ours.

300 Characters:

From Heyman's article on SI.com:

"According to a source in Japan, Seattle was the team Matsuzaka least wanted to go to. That source said he believed Matsuzaka didn't want to play in Ichiro's shadow and would like to have his own spotlight. An executive with a team that may bid agreed that that's the impression he has, as well."

This may be BS, but it's also possible Bavasi and Lincoln didn't want to spend a ton on a guy who didn't want to be here. Although, it may have been prudent to win the posting anyway and offer Matsuzaka a lousy contract so he goes back to Japan and no one else gets him. Wouldn't have cost us a dime.

I meant to post this a while ago, but school started and I got distracted.

About 6 weeks ago, I was on a road trip down to Southern California, and spent a good deal of time in the Los Angeles area. Since it was the middle of the division races, I made a mental note to compare the level of support for the Angels and the Dodgers. What I found shouldn't have been surprising, but it was.

I spent several days in Los Angeles County and a few days in the OC. How many people wearing Dodgers gear did I see in LA County? Too many to count. How many people did I see wearing Angels gear in LA County? Zero. None. Nada. I saw plenty of people decked out in Angels gear down in Orange County (including one who looked suspiciously like Bill Bavasi), but none in LA county.

There are two possible explanations for this:

1. There are hardly any Angels fans in the actual city of Los Angeles.
   
2. The Angels fans in LA proper are a bunch of posers and pretenders who don't wear their colors outside of the ballpark.

according to the Seattle Times, the Yankees have offered Shawn Chacon for Joel Pineiro. Chacon was good last year and horrible this year. Would he be a better option than Cruceta?

300 Characters: The first African American to play in the major leagues was not Jackie Robinson; it was Moses Fleetwood Walker, who played about 40 games for the Toledo Blue Stockings in 1884.

He just went on the 15 day DL. Now, if he is elected to start the All-Star game, neither he nor Mark Loretta will be in it (unless Loretta is picked as an alternate, which would be totally lame). Unless Ozzie is a moron (knock on wood), he'll pick Iguchi and Lopez as his second basemen. Suffice to say, voting for Robinson Cano is more likely to get Jose Lopez into the All Star game than voting for Jose Lopez is.

If, like many, you've come to completely despise the All Star Game, disregard this post.

That is all. Being a mildly superstitious man regarding baseball, I won't say more. Just check out Angels v. Giants.

300 Characters: Bobby Thompson of the Yankees is still the only player ever to win a World Series MVP for a losing team. He won the award despite the fact that the Pirates beat the Yankees in seven games.

I've been mildly irritated about All Star voting in the past, but this year it's just grotesque. I say if Ichiro, J-Lo, Travis Hafner, Joe Mauer, and the rest of the players who actually deserve to start get passed over in favor of some New York or Boston space filler, we refuse to watch the game and get as many like-minded people as possible to do the same. I'm tired of hearing that a bunch of Yankees and Red Sox is "what the fans want." It's what the douchebag East Coast fans and ignorant casual "sports fans" want. The REAl fans want to see the REAL All-Stars. Is anyone with me on this?

Go look at the new sports poll at the bottom of the page at espn.go.com/mlb.

I think this actually warrants some form of protest.

300 Characters fun fact: William Shakespeare and Miguel de Cervantes both died on the same day, April 23, 1616.

C.S. Lewis and Aldous Huxley both died on November 23, 1963, the day John Kennedy was shot.

Looks like this upcoming series won't be as easy as we hoped.

Just reported on theonion.com

"Royals Hire Tom Emanski To Teach Them Fundamentals Of Baseball"

Continue reading this post »

Mad Sabermetrician Creates The Perfect Baseball Player's Statistics

May 18, 2006 | Onion Sports

MINNEAPOLIS--Sequestered in his parents' basement for the past 18 months, mad sabermetrician Gary Neeman emerged Wednesday after achieving the perfect combination of objective knowledge and functional predictors of future performance, successfully assembling the ideal baseball player's 2006 season statistics. "The VORP of Ty Cobb, the win shares of Barry Bonds, the equivalent average of Ted Williams--I have created the mathematical representation of the ultimate run-producing machine!" said Neeman, holding the sacred Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract above his head and invoking the isolated power of Babe Ruth. "I will soon share this creation with the entire baseball world, as long as I can find an overhead projector in time for the annual SABR Convention in Seattle this June!" Neeman's earlier attempts to produce the perfect player's statistics failed, as each of his first eight results was identical to Albert Pujols' 2005 batting line.

I, like many others, fell in love with Kenji Johjima this week. Meanwhile, I am also aware that Jeff Clement may be the Mariners first legitimate hitting prospect for a long time. I find it troubling that Clement's development would necessitate moving Johjima. Then I had this idea:

Hopefully, Carl Everett won't be a Mariner in 2007. I don't hate the guy, I just think his offense isn't worth the money he's paid. Also assuming that Clement continues to move up the minors, why not have Johjima be the everyday catcher next year and have Clement double as the everyday DH and backup catcher? For one, the big knock against Clement has always been his defense. Also, this way we could have both hitters in the lineup every day; Johjima could start, say, 70% of the games at catcher and 30% at DH, and Clement would start 30% at Cather and 70% at DH. This way, we keep two good bats in the lineup every day, and we don't have to use a roster spot on some weak right handed hitting backup catcher.

If this is a horrible idea, let me know (gently).

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news;_ylt=Ank4CoLbcPIQOlBwv8MedKQRvLYF?slug=ap-giants-winn&prov=ap&a mp;type=lgns

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news;_ylt=Aj9Ylt.pv41.sOY2MPyCMqwRvLYF?slug=ap-pirates-wilson&prov=a p&type=lgns

Jack Wilson has one good year two years ago, and earns himself nealry 7M a year. Randy Winn has a few solid years and two great months and he gets a contract for nealy 8M a year. How can these owners ever claim that they're losing money?

Serenity now, sanity later.

"Baltimore Orioles shortstop Miguel Tejada said Thursday he's unhappy with the team's direction and wants to be traded."

What do y'all think of this? Does our commitment to Beltre basically rule this one out? I'm asking just because Tejada is my favorite non-Mariner player. Maybe, in my dreams, we can get Baltimore to eat part of the contract...