Tag: baseball

Life is boring lately

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but as it pertains to my want to write every now and then, it sure doesn’t help when there’s nothing to really talk about outside of sports.  Like really, I comb through news sites, and I try to watch a little bit of news here and there, but on a regular basis, it’s the same old shit that’s being driven further into the ground every single time it comes up, so there’s really nothing particularly interesting to me that gives me any inspiration to really write.

On the local level, the AJC further reinforces the notion that they’re a clown outlet, since the front page of the site has basically turned into the SEC football daily, providing links and news for not just Georgia, but just about every single SEC school’s football programs.  Granted, I guess it sure beats the alternative to the daily shootings, robberies and killings in Southwest Atlanta, but surely, surely, there has to be stuff worth reporting on aside from college football.

National and global news are more of the same crap involving sexual harassment dogpiling, talk of building a wall, and the perpetually constantly rising tensions between the United States and other countries.

Same shit, different day.

It’s no wonder why I always fall back onto sports and wrestling to talk about, because there’s not much else worth writing about that doesn’t just trigger, bother, infuriate or simply annoy.

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Writing when I’m not feeling writing

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Every now and then, I’ll hit a point where I look at my docket of written things, and feel as if I haven’t written anything in a while, and then I feel anxious because I’m OCD like that and feel like I should be writing at the very least, once a week.

However, admittedly a lot of it has to do with the fact that I’ve been feeling like the world around me is in this stagnant state where on any given point, it feels like the world’s primary topics of discussion are encapsulated in these really small capsules as of late, and it’s like the same things are discussed and rehashed 50,000 times before the next thing that should probably be taking a back seat to larger things emerges and the cycle repeats itself.

Like, for example, it seems like the only things being talked about in the world are:

  • Sexual harassment that stemmed from Harvey Weinstein
  • Gun control that stemmed from the Las Vegas shootings
  • Kneeling during the National Anthem that stemmed from Colin Kaepernick
  • Football

Despite the fact that there are vastly bigger issues in the world currently such as:

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Being right vs. the Yankees

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Ever since the Braves decided that they would suck again, I’ve often been forced to gravitate to other teams to try and derive some enjoyment out of the game.  I haven’t hidden my temporary allegiances to teams like the Royals and the Marlins, and I’ve been capable of finding some horse to root for while the Braves not-so deliberately tanked in order to clear payroll and improve draft positioning.

Prior to the start of the 2017 season, I remember seeing news about former Brave, Brian McCann getting traded to the Houston Astros from the New York Yankees.  This was a move that seemed inevitable, due to the rise of now-starting catcher Gary Sanchez, and it wasn’t so much a question of if, but when it was going to happen, and to whom it was going to be to.  My initial reactions were that Houston was kind of a non-contender (despite the fact that they had just made the playoffs), but also the irony of McCann being reunited with another former Brave teammate, Evan Gattis, yet another guy that put his job in jeopardy on a previous club.

And then not long afterward, the Astros announced that they had signed Carlos Beltran to a one-year deal.  Returning to the team where his career took off, the prodigal son had returned.  This is a guy that went off on the Braves and Cardinals in the playoffs in 2004 years before hitting free agency and bounced around the rest of the league making money.  However, the elusive championship remained a pipedream for him, as he was on the Giants on an odd-numbered year, and his closest call ended in 2013 ended with defeat in the World Series.

Regardless, I looked at the acquisition of Carlos Beltran as a perfect piece for a team like the Astros who were brimming with young talent, many of whom were Latino, and would probably benefit greatly from an accomplished Latino veteran like him.

Needless to say, I picked the Astros as my World Series favorites prior to start of the season, because I felt like the veteran leadership added with guys like Carlos Beltran and Brian McCann were the components that could really push the Astros over the top, because their pitching was already solid and practically unchanged from the years prior when they were already knocking on the door.

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I don’t visit losers

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I was having a one-sided conversation the other night with the mythical gf about how I believe that I have a magical touch when it comes to visiting baseball parks, where teams graced by my visits are destined to get into the playoffs.  She thought it was so absurd that she refused to really listen to any of my claims, so it got the gears turning and instead it ends up becoming fodder for the brog that still has no definitive timeline to when will be back up beyond April 2014, but I still keep on writing because that’s what I do.

At the time I’m writing this, the 2017 MLB regular season has officially come to a close, and there are no tie-breakers, no game 163s or any additional games that need to be played.  The playoff field is set, and the path to the World Series is entirely in place for all ten contenders.

Among these contenders are the Arizona Diamondbacks, whom prior to the start of the season were 100/1 odds to make it to the World Series.  Sure, they’re still nine games away from the World Series, but at 100/1, that’s pretty much saying that the playoffs weren’t necessarily a believable prediction back in April, either.

The Arizona Diamondbacks are also the only team I visited throughout the 2017 season, and said game was in fact, the only regular season MLB game I attended all season (I’m a terrible fan, yes).  Yet in spite of the odds, the Diamondbacks won 93 games, and if not for the Dodgers winning 104, are in the playoffs, on a collision course with the Colorado Rockies in the dreaded winner-take-all Wild Card game. 

They could very well end up losing and being one-and-done, but the fact of the matter is that let the history books show, that the Arizona Diamondbacks made the playoffs.

That has a tendency to happen whenever I come visit your ballparks.

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Traffic is never bad for bad teams

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Apparently, traffic expectations for SunTrust Park are not as bad as expected when the Braves are playing home games.

This shouldn’t be a surprise when the Braves are about to finish off a dreadful season in which they’ll be at least 10-11 games under .500 and whose third-place ranking in the division is solely on account of being in the worst division in baseball.  They played 37-44 at ScumTrust, which says fans had a better chance of seeing an L every time they stepped foot onto the new ballpark.

Also, Atlanta sports fans are fickle and fair-weathered and only show up to games when the teams are actually winning.  Since the Braves are a bad team this year, it should come as no surprise that traffic is not terrible, because people aren’t really going to that many games, especially once the honeymoon period of new ballpark ended, leaving only a below-average team playing in ballpark built with dirty money.

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You’re better than this, Adande

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I like J.A. Adande, as a sports journalist.  I remember him best as the straight man on Around the Horn, but in spite of his “role,” he was always a source of informative and insightful sports opinions, on the show and in the times that I’ve come across his writing on the internet throughout the years.

However, I don’t know it’s because it was for The Undefeated, an online rag that doesn’t hide its black bias, and he’s just trying to appeal to its target audience, or he’s deciding to waver from his modus operandi of logical and educated opinions; but his article about how “this isn’t the baseball he grew up watching because there aren’t enough black guys in it and the ones that are aren’t aren’t playing ‘black enough’ baseball” seems just so, so, so beneath a guy I’ve always held in regard for integrity and not needing to ever play the race card in order to look intelligent.

Basically, Adande says the Cincinnati Reds’ Billy Hamilton (a black player) runs down flyballs at the wall, is a fast runner and steals a lot of bases is playing “black baseball.”

By this logic, Mike Trout, Trea Turner and Kevin Pillar, are playing, black baseball.  These are also guys who are very good outfielders who are capable of making plays at the wall and occasionally robbing some home runs, and they are also very fast runners who steal lots of bases.  However, all three of them are white guys, thus negating Adande’s logic of what defines “black baseball,” and how absurd it is to associate such styles of play solely with the color of a player’s skin.

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This would make me a Rays fan for the remainder of the season

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Worth watching baseball again: relief pitcher Jonny Venters continuing journey back to the big leagues, pitching for the Tampa Bay Rays’ Class-A Advanced Charlotte Stone Crabs

Jonny Venters is one of my favorite pitchers to watch, like ever.  Formerly a relief ace on the Braves, I enjoyed his ascent from AAA to the majors and watched him for the better part of three seasons, make hitters look absolutely foolish with a mega-power sinker thrown from the left hand and often at speeds in excess of 96 mph.

He was derailed when he blew out his elbow, requiring the dreaded Tommy John surgery that salvages careers, but effectively knocks guys out of action for at least a year.  To make matters worse, upon the return trail, something went horribly awry and he ended up blowing out his elbow again, requiring a second Tommy John surgery before he even made it back up to the majors.  So back under the knife he went, and another year lost to surgery and rehabilitation.

I actually watched Jonny Venters practice throwing again in the spring time of 2014, when I made a trip down to Orlando to watch some Spring Training baseball.  He was on a distant backfield of the Disney Wide World of Sports facility, practicing long toss with a catcher I couldn’t identify.  I was happy to see that he was back to performing baseball actions again, and had high hopes that the old Jonny Venters would be back to bolster the Braves’ bullpen.

But because life can sometimes be a harsh and cruel mistress, before the season even started, somehow Jonny Venters blew out his elbow a horrific third time.  Once again, he would need Tommy John surgery, and be knocked out of the third consecutive season.  To nobody’s surprise, by this point, the Braves had no choice but to release him, considering he was very much damaged goods, and unintentionally was a drain on payroll.

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