Tag: baseball

Bobby Bonilla, Christian Yelich and baseball is fucking idiotic sometimes

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Most baseball fans know by now, that July 1st is known as Bobby Bonilla Day.  As in the day in which the New York Mets pay a guy that hasn’t played professional baseball since 2001 $1.19 million dollars, and will continue to do so every single July 1st until 2035.  It’s one of the numerous reasons people love to clown on the Mets, and one that literally has no expiration for 15 more years, and it’s ironically celebrated by all in baseball geek circles, because for some reason we’re fascinated by money that people who have no direct impact on our lives make.

And because all this shit is in concrete writing, in spite of the shortened 2020 season where all active players are going to be taking giant hits in their salaries due to prorated numbers, Bonilla will still receive his full $1.19M, and as I mentioned in a post not long ago, shitheads who didn’t officially retire like David Wright and Prince Fielder will still be making multi-millions from their teams, with the former, also being the Mets, because the Mets really love pissing away money.

Also I learned something new about Bobby Bonilla this year, which is how he somehow inexplicably has another deferred money deal with another team, being the Baltimore Orioles, where in addition to the $1.19M he gets from the Mets, he also receives a cool $500K from the O’s every single year between 2004 and 2029.

I sure hope Bonilla still sends Dennis Gilbert, his former agent, a nice gift basket every single year.

Continue reading “Bobby Bonilla, Christian Yelich and baseball is fucking idiotic sometimes” →

Cancellation of Minor League Baseball kills my soul

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Primarily thanks to coronavirus, Minor League Baseball has officially cancelled the 2020 baseball season.  I say primarily, because the insinuation is that it was not the one and only factor in this decision; because prior to the world going into the shitter on account of a pandemic, MiLB was already at risk, because Major League Baseball is full of greedy cocksuckers, and they were trying to kill off associations with a large chunk of existing Minor League organizations.  Coronavirus just gives MLB a convenient scapegoat to push the whole thing under the rug for the time being, and possibly come back later to put the nails in the coffin at a later, easier time.

But commentary aside, the reality is that in 2020, there will be no Minor League Baseball, and that fact alone hurts my soul in a variety of ways.

Obviously, my love for the minor leagues throughout the years has easily made me prefer them over the MLB product, despite being but cogs in the grander machine, but there’s no denying the appeal of the more laid-back, relaxed culture of MiLB, where everything is not taken so seriously, and there’s vastly more accessibility and intimate closeness with the players and the teams, than their MLB parents.

Continue reading “Cancellation of Minor League Baseball kills my soul” →

MLB 2020 the (Shit)Show

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Welp, after months of billionaires feuding with millionaires over millions of dollars to play a kids game, while millions of Americans are applying for unemployment in the midst of a fucking pandemic, Major League Baseball has gotten their shit together, and it looks like we’re going to have a 2020 season after all.

Honestly, I really was hoping that the entire season was going to be cancelled.  The aforementioned narrative is no stretch from reality, and it was disgusting to the core to see so many rich assholes balking over as much money was being argued over, while the entire country has been brought to their knees by coronavirus, and millions of Americans are in financial ruin.  The lack of a season and the financial hit that the owners and the players would all have taken would have been an appropriate slap in the collective dicks for all these greedy fucks for their money-grubbing ways and a reality check that there are things in the world way more important than fucking baseball and I love baseball.

Plus, the sheer decimation and mistreatment of minor league baseball is saddening and can be filed in part of the millions of Americans who are out of jobs and will be in the unemployment lines, and brings the Major Leagues a questionable step towards an uncertain future, but more likely they have a lucrative alternative to the minor leagues already in mind.

Regardless, so it looks like we’re going to have a season, as begrudging it may seem to me.  In the other hand, the last time the Braves won the World Series, it was also in a shortened season, when the 1995 season was reduced to 144 games down from 162, so here’s hoping that the Braves can capitalize on another shortened year, and maybe fulfill the joking theory I have that babies bring luck for baseball fans.*

*A friend who is a Cubs fan had a kid in 2016, another friend who is a Nationals fan had twins in 2019 and look what happened

I mean with only 60 games to be played, 2020 truly stands to be a genuine shit show of a season where literally anyone can win right now.  Teams will fall out of contention within three weeks, but those in contention can remain such all the way to the end.  Sports have proven that any team can get hot on a moment’s notice, and/or have a torrid stretch, and with so little baseball to actually be had, all it takes is one well-timed hot streak, and any team can ride it to the World Series.

Continue reading “MLB 2020 the (Shit)Show” →

Baseball is great, but sometimes I fucking hate MLB

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I was reading this article about how David Wright is still going to be making $12 million dollars in 2020, regardless of if any baseball happens or not, and it leaves me with a feeling of disgust for Major League Baseball for allowing shit like this to happen.

In this particular instance, I can’t blame David Wright for anything other than being a leech and not retiring four years ago, because the Mets and MLB allowed this contract to happen, and MLB doesn’t have the balls to reject the Players Association’s demand for guaranteed contracts, falling back on insurance policies to cover up for the sunk costs.  But the reality is that David Wright hasn’t played in a meaningful game since 2016, missed all of 2017, played in two symbolic games in 2018 to signal his retirement, but didn’t actually retire and continued to get paid throughout 2019, and will get paid in 2020, the final year of his contract, in spite of the very good likelihood that there will be no MLB at all this year.

Also mentioned in the article is Prince Fielder, whom like David Wright, called it quits in 2016, but by virtue of not actually retiring on paper, continued to cash in over the last four years by virtue of the remainder of his contract.  In fact, Prince Fielder stands to be the highest paid player in all of MLB in 2020, because unlike all the active players that are sitting home doing diddly squat on prorated per-diems, Fielder’s remaining $24M is 100% guaranteed, and I suppose there’s something in the literature that even protects it from complete work stoppage.

Let that sink in for a second; two guys that haven’t even played baseball in four years, will be making more money for not playing baseball, than guys like Mike Trout and Bryce Harper, who have the highest respective contracts in baseball currently, because even if some hackneyed season does come to fruition, it’s a safe bet that they’ll be on prorated salaries.

Speaking of prorated salaries, let’s talk about about Tampa Bay pitcher Blake Snell, who has boldly stated that he will outright refuse to play in 2020, unless he’s going to be receiving his full prorated pay, because the current proposal dictates that there be a 50/50 split between the owners and player salaries, meaning players would effectively be receiving 50% of their prorated salaries if a season were to occur.

So for example, if MLB gets their shit together and slaps together a season of 81 games, or half of a season, than Blake Snell should be contractually obligated to half of his $7.6M salary, which would be $3.8 million dollars.  But with the 50/50 split coming into play, then that $3.8M is reduced to $1.9M.

$1.9 million dollars.  To play baseball, ultimately a children’s game.

Continue reading “Baseball is great, but sometimes I fucking hate MLB” →

The KBO should really just tell ESPN to fuck off

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It’s no shock that in the midst of a global pandemic, ESPN is getting starved out when it comes to having live content.  They can’t broadcast NBA, they can’t broadcast MLB.  They can’t even broadcast minor league variants of either.  No hockey, no spring football scrimmages, there’s not even any collegiate soccer, baseball or even fucking ultimate frisbee or Quiddich to show.

And with no sports to talk about, their excessive lineup of talking head shows have no real reason to air, although they’re still managing to squeeze out a regular schedule of circle-jerking/talking about the NFL, justifying my nickname for ESPN being NFL Network Ocho.

In fact, ESPN has gotten so desperate for content, that they’ve even resulted in broadcasting basically YouTube clips of things such as competitive Tetris, among other eSports, mixed in between a cavalcade of “classic” games, in an attempt to draw any sort of ratings. 

It goes without saying that no matter how much original content ESPN can produce, they’re still nothing without there being any actual sports to broadcast or at least talk about.  Once The Last Dance airs its last episode, there’s really going to be nothing left for anyone to have any reason to tune into ESPN afterward.

Luckily for them, there are actual great countries out there in the world, like Korea and Taiwan, who have withstood their own coronavirus onslaughts and are way more on the mend and road to recovery than America is.  And among the things returning to normalcy for them is live baseball, with the Korean Baseball Organization and the Chinese Professional Baseball League both announcing that they are going to be starting their baseball seasons in May; granted, they’re going to be empty stadiums at first, but it stands to believe that as things improve, fans will eventually be allowed in.  But it’s certainly more progress than suggesting all MLB personnel go into a bio-dome in Phoenix and play a condensed season in one city over four months.

So over the last few weeks, there’s been intermittent news about how ESPN has reached out to both the KBO and the CBPL, and testing the waters to see there was any interest in making arrangements to have Korean and/or Taiwanese baseball broadcast globally (really just America).  To no surprise, both are definitely interested, why wouldn’t they want to have their product draw interest overseas, and perhaps earn some respect that’s typically reserved for glorious Nippon-anything because America is full of filthy weeaboos.

However, a massive speed bump in negotiations has basically been the fact that ESPN doesn’t want to pay anything for the rights to internationally broadcast KBO, claiming that they should really just be grateful that they’re being given the opportunity to gain exposure outside of their native country.

Continue reading “The KBO should really just tell ESPN to fuck off” →

A 2020 MLB Arizona-only short season: greed personified

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I know that over the last few years, baseball has definitely fallen pretty hard in terms of priorities in my life, but it’s still my favorite sport, and I’ll always have an ear to the ground in regards to it.  I’ll also include that the lack of the pomp and circumstance of the Opening Day that didn’t happen is mostly lost on me, because of the whole, having a baby owning my life from here on until the indefinite future, but it’s still a sad state of affairs that this is the time of the year in which baseball should be shining the brightest, but thanks to coronavirus, is nowhere to be seen.

Naturally, within the inner workings of baseball and their respective organizations, there are massive repercussions to not having a season; fans don’t get to enjoy watching the national pastime, ballparks all across the country sit dormant as the beautiful spring days and nights come and go, and of course, there are billions of dollars being lost all across the board from there being no baseball.

Ballparks large and small, major league, minor league, semi-pro, etc, make no money on parking, concessions and tickets when there is no baseball.  The local economies that house and surround said ballparks also feel the pinch from there being no focal point to draw traffic to them.  People who work in the ballparks and any businesses that rely on baseball to bring in money, end up suffering and worse, jobless as a result.

And when everything culminates, above all else, the owners, investors and other partners who run baseball organizations and the teams themselves, aren’t making money when there’s no baseball being played.

What’s kind of messed up is that baseball players, are still getting paid in spite of the shutdown.  For doing jack shit nothing at this point, as they can’t really train, since the places they’d go train at are all also shutdown.  Sure, the Bryce Harpers and the Manny Machados aren’t going to be getting their full $30M+ salaries for the year, but it’s reported that quite a few players are making up to $143K a week for doing the aforementioned nothing.

But anyway, the point of this post comes from some news that’s been bubbling over the last few weeks about how Major League Baseball is kicking an idea around, that would attempt to get baseball back onto the field as soon as possible, even if it had some really extreme guidelines about it.

Basically, in this proposal, the entire 2020 MLB season would take place over the span of 4-5 months starting in July or August and go through presumably November.  But here’s the real crazy part of it: all 30 teams would be playing in various stadiums all across Arizona.  And possibly Florida.  Or maybe just Arizona.  The point is, MLB wants to play as much of an entire season as possible in either just Arizona, or they’ll do Arizona and Florida and use the Spring Training Cactus and Grapefruit leagues as two divisions and then mash together a World Series at presumably a neutral site.

Continue reading “A 2020 MLB Arizona-only short season: greed personified” →

The annual Hall of Fame of bullshit spectacle

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment
This screen grab was too classic to not use

Not really news: Derek Jeter is inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame

Unfortunately news: Derek Jeter is inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, but is denied the honor of unanimous induction by one vote

A year ago, when Mariano Rivera was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, as the first man in history to get a 100% unanimous induction, I figured the doors had been blown off, and that we were going to start seeing more guys getting in unanimously.

Prior to Rivera, such a distinction was basically a pipe dream, and throughout the years, fans have witnessed year after year, legend after legend, fail to garner that hallowed 100% vote, no matter who they were.  Cal Ripken, Jr.  Tony Gwynn. Ken Griffey, Jr. Greg Maddux.  These were all guys that were no-brainer locks to make the Hall of Fame, and I have to ask why if they’re such no-brainers, why none of them ever got to 100% unanimous?

Even guys like Chipper Jones, Randy Johnson, and Pedro Martinez, they were champions, pulled in tons of hardware, put up gaudy career stats; everyone knew they were going to get into the Hall of Fame in their first years of eligibility, but why couldn’t any of these guys get a unanimous selection?

I love Mo, as a pitcher and as a human being, but it’s no secret that the BBWAA hasn’t been kind to relief pitchers historically.  In my opinion, Rivera was definitely worthy of a first-ballot induction, but I’m admittedly surprised that he was the first guy to ever get the 100% unanimous.

Was it because he was such a class-act and a known humanitarian?  Just about every baseball fan knew as fierce of a competitor on the field he was, he was as much of a humble and gracious human being off of it.  But that being said, so were guys like Ripken and Gwynn.

Regardless, with Rivera having broken the mold, I figured that there were still a just a few guys left out there that had the chance to also reach the promised land of 100%, with the first one most definitely being Derek Jeter.

Continue reading “The annual Hall of Fame of bullshit spectacle” →