SB Nation User Blog: redhornet78

Fun with Wikipedia

redhornet78 — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 19:28:34 -0000

I have about an hour to kill at work and wanted to see in what town Timmy was born (Bellevue), and i realized there are some fun facts about our boys in the wacky pages of Wikipedia. Here is a list of our 25 man roster with whatever's the funnest fact i could find about them from just their Wiki entry. I tried to avoid the obvious stuff, but how many of these are new to you?

in order by jersey number, because, um...

Bengie - "played shortstop for Arizona Western College"
Dwight Winn - "On October 3, 1999, he hit an inside-the-park grand slam against the New York Yankees. No player has hit one since."
Juan "Scrunchy Face" Uribe - "Uribe has ... three children: Juan Luis, Juanny, and Janny"
Ishi - "person life married michelle" (this part is written just like this and hidden at the very bottom of his page)
Nate - "He is one of few baseball players to bat without batting gloves."
Flewis - "He is the cousin of former major league outfielder Matt Lawton."
Edgar R. - "is one of only three players to be the last hitter of two World Series"
Matty C - "graduated from Houston High School in Germantown, Tennessee, where he earned the nickname Big Sugar"
Eli W- "MLB Debut: July 5, 2005 for the Baltimore Orioles"
Scott Rowand - "is the first cousin of Tampa Bay Rays pitcher James Shields."
Matt Downs - "born March 19, 1984 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama"
B. Wilson - "recorded saves in 24 consecutive save opportunities between May 2, 2008 and August 20, 2008"
Affeldt - "he had half of the nail surgically removed after the 2003 season"
Justin Miller - "in 2004, Major League Baseball established a rule that forced Miller to wear long sleeves whenever he played."..."I don't know," he laughed. "They just said it's the 'Justin Miller rule.'""
Howry - "is one of four pitchers who have pitched in at least 70 games each of the four seasons from 2004-08"
Snatchwig - "When Valdez was first traded to the Giants, he went by the name Manny Mateo. While in his first year with the organization, however, his real name and real age (nine months older than he previously claimed) were revealed"
Panda - "Sandoval himself characterized his approach as: "See ball, swing."
RJ - "During batting practice in 1988, the 6'10" Johnson, then with the Montreal Expos, collided head-first with outfielder Tim Raines, prompting his teammate to exclaim, "You're a big unit!""
Medders - "born January 26, 1980 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama"
Romo - "In 2005 he was the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Pitcher of the Year."
Timmy - "Lance Berkman offered his view of Lincecum: "He's got as good of stuff as I've ever seen. ... He's got three almost unhittable pitches.""
Sadowski - Categories: Polish-American sportspeople
Dirty Sanchez - "becoming the 3rd player from Sabana Grande, PR to reach the Major Leagues and the 1st pitcher (Jose Vidro, Robinson Cancel)"
Torres - "On June 15th, 2009, Torres hit the 48th Splash Hit at AT&T Park."
Zito - "His uncle is TV's Patrick Duffy"
Bochy (Bonus) - "is known for having one of the largest cap sizes in Major League Baseball at 8 3/4. When he joined the Mets in 1982, they did not have a batting helmet that would fit him, and they had to send the ones he was using in the minors."

I was at the game last night and just have to vent

redhornet78 — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 22:11:00 -0000

so here’s an idea of the dodgers fans there…

“giants suck”, “go back to the gay area”, “giants are fags”. all family friendly stuff when their team was up by five runs. and for every one “go dodgers” you hear five “giants suck” because they don’t seem to want pride in their home team, just contempt for another city.

i saw three fights break out and someone threw a full container of popcorn at a giants fan who was walking up the aisle; he went and told security so logically security threw HIM out.

one dodgers fan stood up, looked at the crowd around him and yelled “show some class guys, we’re representing the dodgers”…. he was booed and had bottles thrown at him until he gave up and walked away.

walking away from the game two drunks started yelling “any faggot giants fans here? i want to kick some ass”. there were six of us, but my most rowdy friend who is always ready to brawl just shrugged and said “eh, i’ve got work tomorrow and a future, so i’ll pass.”

i’ve been going to dodgers-giants games here in l.a. since 1998 and this was one of the worst crowds i’ve seen… each year they seem to get more vulgar and disrespectful.

man, i can’t wait to see a game up home next month with decent human beings.

OT: What was your first comment?

redhornet78 — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 18:48:19 -0000

After reading Xathan's Open HAPPY Giants Images Thread (Yay!) I noticed some McCoven posting their first ever comment on the site and wanted to see what everyone else's was.

I would love to see a hodgepodge that old timers would understand and we'd have to explain to the new kids. so, post your "109!" followed by someone else's "garlic fries are the bestest."

Oh, If you have hundreds on comments I don't know how to go directly to your first one; I just looked at the date I joined then went to the MC archives and searched through a few threads after that date. Can someone post the non-dummy way of doing it?

Vernon Wells?

redhornet78 — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 19:11:39 -0000

Vernon Wells?

6 years, $100M left on the contract, can opt out after 2011.

if the blue jays are trying to shed payroll and want to get out from under this contract, is it worth it for us to pursue?

James has his 2009 projections looking like this:
23 hr
85rbi
.281
.817 OPS
.355 wOBA

of course this is in toronto... as far as i can read espn has the rogers centre park factor as favoring the pitcher even more than the big phone, but i'm not sure how that works.

anyhow, wells just turned 30 last week and played in only 108 games last year, but i'd still prefer him in center to scotty.

the jays definitely won't give him away, and would need to replace him in the outfield, so i'm thinking:

rowand, sosa and english for wells.

blue jays save $52M and rowand's deal is 2 years shorter than wells. they also pick up some good pitching prospects.

i REALLY want out of rowand's contract, and this gives us a middle of the order bat without having to give up too much.

i've always liked wells and wanted us to pursue him before his large extension was signed, so maybe i'm still all over 2005 wells.

Mets Interested in Pierre?

redhornet78 — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 23:15:52 -0000

Mets Interested in Pierre?

for some reason the mets are interested in pierre, assuming the dodgers pick up a huge chunk of salary. if they are looking for a speedster, i do believe we have postseason hero who could fill the need for a stolen base threat.

although i think he's a great clubhouse guy, i really want to move roberts. i'd prefer the rotating 4 outfielders plus bowker as the backup. i really want to see what nate and bowker can do and feel any at-bats going to roberts aren't going to see what our future clubs are about.

what would it take to move roberts? $2.5M and roberts for a A/AA arm?

MLB Sale

redhornet78 — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 18:29:24 -0000

MLB Sale

This should be a FanSniffle, but check out the shop mlb site because everything is 30% off, today only.

i got some great giants stuff for my sister's baby, due in feb, and check out the clearance hats- i got a baby beanie for $6, a second one for $2 more, and then 30% off on top of that. that's not a bad gift for a human who's still inside another human.

A Day Without MC

redhornet78 — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 00:25:27 -0000

without access to mccovey chronicles all day, i had to find other ways to pass the time.

i thought, what if we can trade barry zito and aurelia for a plethora of unwanted contracts, say, giambi, mussina and pavano from the yankees. with buying out giambi's and pavano's option, we take on $50M in salary while unloading $115M. The Yankees get out of 3 bad contacts (but take on two) to make room for a youngster and fall under the salary limit, which saves them an additional $21M. We take a massive salary hit this year, but let all three go next year.

we end up not having to pay for zito after this season, and the yankees take on zito for a cost to them of $44M over 6 seasons. they also get aurelia to carry the bats or what not.

We could always play with including roberts or winn or some other crazy combo, but the point is it would be a huge savings to the yankees, while basically swapping mussina for zito in their rotation, while unburdening us from a potentially franchise-wrecking contract. plus we get to boo pavano and watch giambi try to man first again, which would make the children laugh (and weep).

but the whole point is SEE WHERE OUR MINDS WANDER WITHOUT THE MCCOVEN AROUND!!! i had to sit around and come up with these crazy situations that would never happen as long as sabean is still around. PLUS it forced me to be productive at work today- let's not ever let that happen again.

Baseball Mogul 09

redhornet78 — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 20:47:14 -0000

i know some of you nerd it up like i do and look forward to the latest edition of the game. i downloaded it yesterday and played for an hour last night, and have to say it's pretty much the same as '08. they do have a really cool depth chart feature now, but i've always been bummed they don't have a really easy feature to track your players' arbitration clock.

they have MadBum and TimA but no Wendell, which is disappointing, but i just cloned Freddie Lewis and tweaked his stats and age to make a Fairley. they also wised up on trades (no more prince fielder for aurelia offers) and give a little more info during game time. They also invented some minor leaguers for the giants, as apparently we don't have enough to fill out the roster.

anyone else had a chance to check it out? any other similar games worth getting into?

Fantasy League Question

redhornet78 — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 18:33:56 -0000

so i've only tried out yahoo fantasy baseball these past few years and i keep reading about these "keeper leagues." since working as hard as i do (laziness) prevents me from researching all the options can someone fill me in on which leagues are best/free/worth the price? and are we throwing a league together this year?

Poll

Best Picture of 2007

No Country for Old Men

19 votes

There Will Be Blood

11 votes

I voted for Nader

8 votes

38 votes | Poll has closed

Quick MLB.TV question

redhornet78 — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 18:29:21 -0000

i remember last year mlb.com had a sale on all their items, and i believe people got a discount for mlb.tv as well... does anyone know if that same deal was offered this year? i know i have to buy the package soon and was hoping to get a "my team will lose often and i want to pay less because of it" deal.