When I saw Gonzalez pull the 3-6-4 DP yesterday, I was in awe, I was a little shocked, I was reminded of the craziness in last months Dodgers loss when I was yelling at Gonzalez to take the easy out...

then I read this article and have this new found respect for Gonzalez, not that I didn't have apprecation for his defense...but to put it into context that he could possibly be the best first baseman in the bigs... wow!

I had no idea the 3-6-4 was that rare.  Anyways, great read, and I agree, Gonzalez for MVP!

Sullivan on Gonzalez's defense

Well, I decided to go and experience the Southern Bred ritual that is NASCAR.

Had I attended a Nascar race after first coming over from San Diego...I most undoubtedly would have endured a major case of culture shock.

American trucks everywhere, everyone from grandma to 2 year olds wearing something that has a number, people tailgaiting. American flags, confederate flags.  I guess if you have never been to a race, and you imagine what it would be like, then yeah, that is exactly what its like.

First thing I noticed, beside all the above....the race started at 8PM and the place was packed at noon.  I mean people were tailgaiting, going to the entertainment area which was nothing but corporate debauchery (giveaways, "experieinces" to include simulators, stock car revving, merchandising up the butt, etc.)

Other thing I noticed, wasn't just rednecks there...there were families, businessmen, college kids, you name it.

As for the race, wow!!!!  It was nothing like watching on TV, the absolute speed of these cars is hard to comprehend unless you are standing at the exit of a bank on the railing and watching the cars whiz past you and a rush of wind hit you like a brick wall as the lead lap comes barrelling by.

Crashes are amazing as the sound of cars thudding against the barrier and the smell of burnt rubber is so thickening.

But I guess the most impressive thing, it is LOUD.  I mean, no wonder everyone is wearing ear plugs and hearing protection.  Funny to watch 3 years olds walking around with hearing protection.  Cute.

My row, seemed to be the family row.  At the bottom, there was like 5 or 6 kids ages ranging from 6 to 10 all watching the race, boys and girls.

Now...to answer the critics, its one of those things, you can't knock it if you don't watch it.  Before I was a "closet fan" but no I'm not afraid to say Tony Stewart is my mine.

My wife said, how could you watch it, its just a bunch of cars going round and round...and then I thought, you know, that is the SAME exact thing she said about me watching baseball...its just a bunch of people throwing balls and hitting, its so boring.  I started to explain that there is amazing strategy going on, there are LOTS of things going on that we just don't know.  And if we really want to get in tune, we can always bring a radio headphone and tune in to follow along the game.

Same thing can be said with watching a race.  On the outside, a bunch of cars going round and round but there is a tremendous amount of strategy.  And now with in car audio and actual feedback from pit crew managers, you can see strategy being taken pre, mid, and near end race that have actual effects on the outcome.  And of course, at the race, just looking at the leaderboard, not much to surmise from the race, but NASCAR fans know better, nearly EVERYBODY had either a track scanner or a radio headphone set.  So not only do NASCAR fans go to watch, they want to know what is going on.

All in all, I was sold and needless to say, I will be taking my son to the September Rock N Roll 400 in Richmond.

If I were you, I'd catch a NASCAR race when they roll into Cali, if anything, its an excuse to get drunk and act stupid.

Now...Richmond is unique becaues its one if not the only (well there is Bristol) that runs under the lights.  And NASCAR under the lights is truly a sight to see.  I think other tracks are starting to do that and you'll start to see NASCAR trying to compete with PRIMETIME sports air.

Anyways, that was just a BUSCH series race I saw, the actual NEXTEL cup race which is today at night, is the real draw...and to think that yesterday was nuts...one of the vendors told me that for NEXTEL races, take todays crowd and atmostphere, and triple it, thats what you'll get tomorrow.

A funny story, kind of like when you're team is losing badly in the 7th and the fans start streaming out, when you're "driver" or "car" is taken out of the race, you start seeing the die hards of that team leaving for the exits as well...pretty funny.

wow...hes now a QB coach at Western Texas A&M.

lives in a dinky apartment.

what a fall from grace.

kudos that he has moved on but man, what a life to be forever the single worst failure in draft history and to be in payton's shadow forever.

Im surprised he even did the interview.

Claims he is happy, simple, settled, and doing something he loves (he is also the golf coach, haha).

http://www.signonsandiego.com/sports/canepa/20060929-9999-6s29canepa.html

It's nice to see UT giving props to management.  Win or lose, he's right, the job these guys have done considering how crazy this year has been and how high the expecations were after last year's embarrassing division title, I am almost going to say that Bochy deserves consideration for manager of the year.

Musical pitchers, musical thirdbaseman, musical catchers, and so called controversy and internal dissention on August 1st for not having done crap to improve the team...

I think Towers can rightly say, I TOLD ALL YOU MUTHAFUC....... Now shut the hell up and go back to your armchairing GM spots.

I guess that is part of the job description of GM and coach, reap the praises when things go well and be the shitscreen when things aren't.

Pads interested in Beltre

Now that would be quite a young infield.  I'm wondering if all along, the crazy LACK of spending, the expensive hotdogs, and the ultimate demise of the cash hog contracts that include Klesko, was intended to get that marquee player we as fans have been coveting all along.

I would be hesistant, Beltre would be a gamble.  I think I like Ensberg a little more.  But Beltre would have obviously more upside.  And with the hitter friendly park, Petco, rivaling only that of Coors field, maybe that would be a great move.

no, I did not waste my money to purchase a book about Bonds, trash talking or not.

But I did listen to this ESPNRadio podcast that interviewed the author in a nice "cliff notes" type synopsis of the book.  Saved me money and time.

Not that we will like Bonds any more or less but the author does a great job explaining why he is the way he is. (an impressive and impartial accounting of over 500 people's thoughts and stories on Bonds is legit enough for me) Fact, he did grow up with a messed up childhood.  Fact, he was raised an elitist, fact, his dad, great ballplayer and all, was a total jackass, fact, he has very few loyal supporters, and finally, he most certainly used steroids and HGH.

Love me, hate me: Podcast

Newcomer Bowen has no idea how much we despise Mags, either that or he is so green hitting major league pitching that any advice will help.

Padres.com reports on Mags positive influence on Bowen (is this another planned PR booster like they did with the trainer girl???).

Bowen giving credit to Mags

but on another level... I'm really tired of couch potato GM's thinking they can do the job any better.  Charger's A.J. Smmith is taking alot of heat for all his moves, the apparent rift with Coach, and the latest, putting Edwards up on the block for trading.

A GM's job is to remove himself from emotion and look at what the team's best interests are now AND in the future.  Granted, Edwards was very popular, but everyone can see he is declining and to give him an elite salary is ludicrous...baseball, one thing, where a 40 year old pitcher can still be successful.  Football, different story.

He claims that his stats speak for themselves, but I don't care if you tackle 100 times in a game if they are all after big gainers who cares!  Richard, we need to do one of those fancy stats that measures the worth of tackle and gives weight to tackles for losses or tackles for short gains, or heck tackles that stop first downs on third and fourth down situations, that woudl be sweet.

Long story short, Edwards, quit crying, its part of the game, look at Seau, he sucks in Miami, lets not fall into the trap with the Padres of overpaying has been talent, unless you are a destined Hall of Famer.

So since the game was rained out...I decided to pick a game, and lo and behold, it was BoSox versus Rangers...and to my delight, it was like watching ExPads squad A versus ExPads squad B.  

Our boy Nevin had 5 RBI's and had this smug look like, look at me KT, take that and your damn PETCO park.

Aki looked scary as usual giving up one run despite having an enormous lead. Loretta did okay 2 for 4 I think, but get this, he got his second hit of Aki and it was first pitch fastball swinging single.  Hmmm...don't think he has his old teammate scouted to a tee, not like all of MLB did, hey hint, that first pitch WILL be a fastball right down the middle!

Seanez was in there for an inning but I didn't check him out.

But the big story was of course Nevin.

I think she needs a Gaslampballer to help her promote herself in all manner of form.  Who agrees we should contact her PR person and hook up a Benson/Gaslampball relationship that might lead to her sleeping with the whole Gaslampball crew (at least threatening too, and of course excluding all happily married men, and women!).

Update [2006-3-31 11:2:14 by bktabinga]:
http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/wcStory?contentId=5455784

Anyone get the new PS2 game The Show? (Anyone still play games on the PS2?)

Was wondering how our boy sounds on the game.  I can't believe Vagasndslasrian landed a gig on a baseball game!  I want this guys agent.  Give him a raise!
I posted some trailers that feature his play by play...although I'm wondering if they toned down his signature play calling just a tad.  Need to get a game to pick up Grant so we can hear some SANTUHHHH MARIIIIAAAAAAA'sss.

http://video.gamedaily.com/cgi/player/?packageid=0078700892

http://video.gamedaily.com/cgi/player/?packageid=0078700845

So I found an interesting article on ESPN that sums up my opinion of good 'ol Bolt head coach, Marty.

Continue reading this post »

In an effort to get Dex/jbox/kevin on the bandwagon and capitalize on their position with Gaslamp and the local Pads blog community, I thought I would put up a poll just to show him that if given the chance to sponsor a movement/catch phrase/tshirt idea, people will follow and will make waves.

I had some help from Dex, if you got some ideas, put em up, and hopefully they will be added to the poll.  I can already see that I would want to buy some of these tshirts if they existed.

The "Save Bochy Fairies" must have been out last night because not only did he have the craziest lineup card this side of the Rockies, but he got booted from the game no less.  I never realized how tall the guy was until he started standing over the 1st Base Ump.

Personally, I think it was a combination of desparation, giving a struggling Giles the chance to regroup and think about things, and stacking the lineup card full of righties to try and generate some kind of offense.

But for simplicities sake, you can only choose one.  Have fun.

Here is a fun little poll to see what everything thinks when they think of Pad Squad.  It's gotta be the first answer that makes sense to you and no pondering over it.

It's like word association except you are given the answers so creativity maybe stifled a bit.

Also, due to the amount of answers, it may lead to unrevealing results and not enough to make statistically significant assumptions about Gaslamp readers true deep down feelings about our dear PadSquadders.  That's why Dex needs to increase the sample size of our reader base to get these surves to become statistically relevant.  (Hopefully this is above the 300 minimum character limit so I can post this silly little diary.)

Mine would have to be Larry "Stay Hot" Bowa.  His wit just kills me.  I know he had a love/hate relationship as a manager (remember his stint with the Pads) but I could only imagine how he acted in the clubhouse if it's any indication of how he is on MLB Radio.

My second favorite would have to Rob Dibble.  The guy really just tells it how it is.  I never liked him as a player, mostly because he was on the Reds, but I did see him once at a home game throwing his glove up in the air trying to catch batting practice balls that sailed over his head down the left field line.  Strange guy.

After getting home from work, excited to witness baseball history as baseball returns to DC (its always exciting to see a town welcome baseball), I was thumbing through the channels thinking, its gotta be on ESPN, or our local affiliate which carries Orioles games due to the Orioles being the closest damn team in the Virginia Area.

To my shock, I see that ESPN was carrying the BoSOX and YANKS, AGAIN!!!  I'm tired of seeing that crap.  But wait, the local Cox InHD channel was showing a MLB game, geez, its another showing of the BoSOX and YANKS.  The Orioles channel is showing the Orioles games, so now we got 2 channels showing BoSox and Yanks, and 1 showing the Orioles.  Fine, I guess I can't watch the game, well mabye CNN or MSNBC is showing the pre game highlights and first pitch live.  NOPE.  Given that CNN and those other 24 hours news stations have nothing better to do than spend all day covering Michael Jackson cases or what not, they can't cover just 5 minutes of the Nationals home opener.

Is it just me, or is TV based solely on ratings with no attention payed to real historical events, classy historical events, and you would think ESPN would have showed just a glimpse of the pre-game live, NOPE, the much overhyped SOX/YANKS game gets the nod.  Oh, and ESPN would be quick to say, see its good we showed that game instead because you got to see a silly confrontation between a drunk SOX fan and a cocky Yankees Million Dollar Baby.

Of all the teams, except maybe the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees...the Padres roster really reflects, well San Diego, not that I'm saying SD is a bunch of pretty boys and surfer dudes, but if you take a look at some of these guys, you can't help but think they belong here.

Adam Hyzdu - Recently entered competition between Khalil Greene, Brian Giles, and Ryan Klesko for best hair on the ballclub

Ryan Klesko - Need I say more, the guy literally exudes Fabio-ness the way he stands there and tosses the hair out of his eyes...not to mention he really is a surfer boy

Brian Giles - His hair is impecabble and he literally IS a native

Khalil Greene - With the hair, the zenlike attitude, and his ultra coolness factor, he might as well been a Cali native.

Any other contenders on this list???

So I'm really excited about this free preview MLB Extra Innings stuff, especially since I live in Virginia and miss my Padres, alas it ends 4/10 and I either have to pony up $149 (yikes), $79 for MLB.TV, or watch (is that even the right verb) MLB Gameday, I used MLB.TV last year for 2 months at $14.95/month and it was a lifesaver.

Now, for staying up until 130AM EST or so watching the game (please write to Owners to change game time to 630PM to give me an extra half hour of sleep), I thought it was a mediocre performance.  With the exception of stellar defense, pitching, by the Pads, I saw the same stuff last year that I believe cost us the playoffs, lack of situational hitting (trying to swing for the fences in a not so friendly park with men in scoring position and no outs), lack of execution of fundamentals and strange play calling (with runners at first and second and no out and ONE run in WINS the game, YOU BUNT BOCHY, you don't try to trick people). Granted, it worked in the winning inning but only after giving the Pirates several chances to put runs on the board before you.

That being said, great job to fight it out, hang tough, and come away with a valuable home win.  I love it when Peavy throws a gem and says on the post-game that he wasn't on target.  WOW!  So what's your A-game like, well we all know the answer to that.  On another note, maybe the Padres were trying a different approach to the stadium because I only saw one long fly ball and that was a Klesko flyout to left (I could be wrong).  Maybe they were just getting outpitched.

Now Dex mentioned in his blog about Hydzu becoming the object of affection for his wife's cousin.  It must be that long hair and manly man look of his.  Come to think of it, if you noticed on TV Hydzu was always jabbering with Klesko.  Could it be that they were exchanging hair secrets.  I think so.  I think Klesko might get a little envious if he gets wind that Hydzu is winning the affections of young girls in the 619.