Baseball Between Us

Alex Rodriguez of the New York Yankees went deep Tuesday night with the bases loaded for his 23rd Grand Slam. A-Rod has now tied the Iron Horse, Lou Gehrig, for the most Grand Slams in Major League history. See it for yourself here:

A-Rod Grand Slam

A-Rod’s blast in the 8th inning tied the score at 4 against the Atlanta Braves — and Yankees would eventually win the game 6-4. The Yanks have always seemed to have the Braves number — ever since the 1996 World Series.

The Yankee third baseman now has 639 career home runs, fifth on the all-time list — and  just 21 behind the legendary Willie Mays.

It was a tough day at the office on Sunday for Tim Lincecum of the Giants.

Troubles for Timmy

The San Francisco ace walked three straight batters in the 1st inning after fanning Ian Kinsler of the Rangers on 3 pitches.

Kinsler K's

Lincecum got out of the jam without giving up a run, but was lit up later and lost 5-0 to a hot Texas team.Timmy’s troubles continue as he now has an ERA of 6.00 for the season and has not notched a victory in his last 8 starts – the longest dry spell in his career.

Lincecum Keeps Losing

I was at the game on Sunday and to me, Lincecum looked noticeably slower on the mound – with his fastball clocking in at no higher than 90 miles per hour — a big drop from several years ago when he was registering closer to 95 mph on a regular basis. The Giants are now 2-11 when Lincecum pitches and the Giants have got to be worried.

Despite the loss by the Giants, it’s always a great day at the ballpark where fans can see 3 innings of a game for free as part of the Knothole Gang, behind the right field fence.

Knothole View

Meanwhile, the kayakers are waiting in the Bay for Splash Hits that may come their way.

Waiting for Splash Hits

And I always get a chuckle from the Yogi Berra quotes on the wall near the Giant Coke Bottle in left field.

Giant Coke Bottle in Left Field

Yogi was once asked, “What would you do Yogi if you found a million dollars?” His response, “Well first I’d try to find out who lost it — and if he was poor, I’d give it back to him.”

Yogi Quotes

Add it all together and the ambiance in San Francisco is second to none, which is why I’ve ranked AT&T the #1 park in the country. You can always be guaranteed a great time – even if the home town team doesn’t win.

And before the game, I had a chance to catch up with former KCRA reporter Marty Gonzalez — who invited me on to his Sunday morning news show on KRON-TV  to discuss Baseball Between Us.

Marty Gonzalez

It truly was a great day.

Now if we can just figure out a way to get Timmy back on track!

Maybe last night’s post about Seattle brought the Mariners a little luck — But it was Oh-No for the Dodgers and a No-No for the Mariners, who made history tonight by using six different pitchers who combined for a No-Hitter. Seattle’s 1-0 win was just the third No-Hitter in team history and was sparked by this defensive gem by third baseman Kyle Seager.

Defensive Gem

Later, Seager would single in the lone run of the game:

Winning RBI

Seattle’s starting pitcher Kevin Millwood had to leave the game after 6 innings due to a groin strain. The team No-Hitter is the 10th in Major League history and the first since 2003, when the Houston Astros did it.

I just got back from a whirlwind tour of Seattle, one of America’s most beautiful cities.

Seattle Space Needle

The view from the top of the Space Needle is spectacular, even when it’s cloudy, as on this typical Seattle day:

Downtown Seattle

While there, I was able to catch up with some good friends from yesteryear, including Margaret Pelley (Larson), a former anchor at KCRA-TV. She’s now the host of New Day Northwest on KING-TV, the NBC station in Seattle.

Mike & Margaret

We worked together in Sacramento back in the 80’s — way before Al Gore invented the Internet. Margaret was nice enough to invite me on to her show to help publicize a book signing for Baseball Between Us at Elliott Bay Book Company, one of the largest independent book stores anywhere.

Elliott Bay Book Company

Here’s a video clip from the interview with Margaret:

New Day Northwest

One of the highlights in Seattle is EMP: Experience Music Project, featuring an entire wing of Jimi Hendrix memorabilia and music. Check out the sound room, where you can slip on a pair of headphones and play with an audio mixer while “Crosstown Traffic” is cranked to the max! Then fade down the percussion to hear the overdubs on the vocals and the multi-layers of sound that made Jimi’s music timeless.  EMP is a project of Paul Allen of Microsoft fame and the building is designed by the famous architect Frank Gehry. Best of all, you can ride the Seattle monorail right to the museum from downtown.

Monorail and EMP

And next time you’re up in the Pacific Northwest, don’t forget to take a sailboat ride on Puget Sound.

Sailing on Puget Sound

Wish I could have been on board, but I was busy hanging out with my good friend Herb Weisbaum, who hosted me in Seattle and invited me on to the radio at KOMO-AM.

Herb at KOMO

And then, he worked his magic to arrange this interview with KOMO-TV:

http://www.komonews.com/video/?id=156548305

In my next blog, I’ll show you the Seattle shop that is one of the coolest places to get authentic baseball memorabilia anywhere, including jerseys from the Sacramento Solons.

Logan Morrison, a left fielder for the Miami Marlins,  wanted to honor his father, Tom Morrison, on Memorial Day. The elder Morrison was a Coast Guard veteran who died in 2010.  So when the younger Morrison came to the plate in the 4th inning against Washington’s Jordan Zimmermann, he was determined to do something big.

He did — hitting a towering home run to right field to tie the score for the Miami Marlins — and as Morrison crossed the plate,  he gave the Coast Guard salute (see it here):

Coast Guard Salute

Morrison’s tradition is to salute the heavens whenever he homers. It’s a tradition designed to pay tribute to his father. “I had goosebumps going around the bases,” Morrison said. “Giving him a salute was pretty cool.”

Meanwhile, the Miami Marlins are red hot – beating the Nationals today 5-3, to improve their record in May to 19-8, which ties their franchise record. Miami is now tied for 2nd place in the National League East, with a record of 27-22 — not bad after starting April with eight wins and 14 losses.

Bryce Harper, the 19-year-old rookie for the Washington Nationals has done it again. Harper smashed a monster home run against the Atlanta Braves Sunday night on national television. Check it out here:

Harper Goes Deep

Harper went 1-4 in helping his team beat the Braves 7-2. The rookie has been in the Bigs just one month (debut April 28) and already has 4 homers along with a .287 batting average. He’s also driven in 11 RBI.

And just in case you think he’s all bat and no field – take a look at this play he made to rob the Braves of an extra base hit:

Harper Makes Nice Grab

The kid won’t even be 20 until October and already he’s becoming a force, helping the surprising Nationals to first place in the National League East.  Just another reason to visit this great stadium next time you’re in D.C. — Nationals Park is truly a great place to see a ballgame.

Nationals Park

The $611 million publicly financed park features a 4,500-square-foot-high-definition scoreboard. It seats 41,888 and offers great views of the Capitol and Washington Monument, but it is the park’s “green” amenities that are truly inspiring.

The field is actually below street level, so fans can enter the park without using elevators, stairs or ramps, making it easy to get to the seats.  But it’s the on-field entertainment that also makes Nationals Park so fun. Whereas Milwaukee has its wiener races, in Washington it’s the president who run around the track – in this case, small people dressed up in over-sized heads of the most popular presidents.

In this presidential race that Matt and I saw (below), Teddy Roosevelt won in a landslide over Abe Lincoln,

TR Wins The Race

who finished second and not third because he decked George Washington in the chops, sending the Father of Our Country flying to the turf, proving that politics is a full-contact sport – especially in Nationals Park.

They are baseball’s lovable losers, but there’s nothing to love about the Cubs terrible record. They have lost 6 in a row and are now 11 games below 500.

Cubs Shut Out By White Sox

Chicago is once again dead last in the National League Central with a .366 winning percentage:  The Standings

If you think this year is bad, consider this: the Cubs haven’t won a World Series since 1908. That was 104 years ago. But hey, anyone can have a bad century.

Yet ironically, the Cubs used to be good. Very good.

In 1906 the northsiders were 116-36, with a .736 winning percentage that still ranks as the best ever. Then in 1907 and ’08 they won back-to-back World Series.

So what happened? They moved.

Into Wrigley Field.

Built in 1914, the Cubs took possession in 1916 and ever since that point – they have been terrible. How bad are they?

Consider this: pre-Wrigley, the Cubs had 2,971 wins against 2,152 losses. Since 1916, the Cubs have 7,382 wins with  7,708 losses and counting. That’s why some are calling for the destruction of Wrigley Field, calling it cursed:

Why Wrigley Field Must Be Destroyed

The critics say Wrigley Field is “so pleasant” the game has become secondary. I’ve been to Wrigley several times. It’s a great place to see a game – the fans are passionate about their team, especially when they’re drunk, which is usually the case by the 2nd inning. It’s a rowdy place that’s old-school and nostalgic, but never “pleasant”.

I don’t think Wrigley is the problem. Rather it’s been years of bad trades, inept management and the failure to develop a competitive farm system. But now that Theo Epstein is on board as GM, you can expect he’ll make the Cubs competitive again, just as he did with that other historic franchise he ran: the Boston Red Sox. The Cubs just need a little time to get better.

Maybe 2100 will be “their” century.

Texas Rangers outfielder Josh Hamilton hit 4 home runs Tuesday, to nearly single-handedly beat the Baltimore Orioles 10-3. Hamilton homered in the first, third, seventh and eighth innings and also doubled in the fifth, to go 5-5 with 8 RBI. He also had 18 total bases to establish a new single-game American League record.

The Hamilton hit parade took place in Oriole Park at Camden Yards, the same site where he beat up on Baltimore four years ago, when I was there with my son, Matt. On August 10, 2008, Hamilton hit a towering 3-run homer and went 3-6 to lead the  Rangers to a 15-7 victory. That’s Josh Hamilton, the little tiny ant, at the plate in the picture below.

Oriole Park at Camden Yards

You can’t really tell who the players are, but I think my goal in taking the picture was to show the beauty of Oriole Park, one of the top 5 stadiums in the nation in my rankings.

If he stays healthy, Josh Hamilton is a lock to win the MVP in the American League, where he is batting .406 with 14 home runs and 36 Runs Batted In. By hitting four homers in a game, Hamilton joins Willie Mays, Mike Schmidt and Lou Gehrig, along with 12 others who have accomplished the feat.

Jered Weaver’s No Hitter was the talk of the town from Anaheim to Boston this week, Slide Show of Weaver\’s No Hitter but there was one place where no one said a word about it. Ironically, it was the Angels broadcast booth that was silent. No Mention of No Hitter

Angel Stadium

Angels broadcasters Victor Rojas and Mark Gubicza never mentioned the words “no” and “hitter” together because of a baseball superstition that says you never talk about a No Hitter while it’s in progress for fear of jinxing it. That’s fine if you’re a player on the field – but not ok if you are the team’s play-by-play announcer or analyst – and it’s your job to call the game and tell it like it is.

The great Jon Miller, broadcaster for the San Francisco Giants, knows the importance of connecting the audience to the game – and how keeping them informed can generate even more interest via Twitter, Facebook and good old fashioned phone calls. “I feel like I have a responsibility to my audience, to the station, to the network, to say what’s going on,” Miller was quoted as saying.

Ironically, it was Weaver himself who broke another baseball tradition – the pitcher is never supposed to leave his spot on the bench between innings when he’s throwing a No Hitter – but Weaver moved spots out of necessity. “I had to pee so bad it was unbelievable,” Weaver told reporters after the game. Now that’s a good reason to move.

Baseball superstitions are a part of the game – players on a hitting streak will often not change their eating habits or even their underwear – but broadcasters in my estimation, have a responsibility to the audience to report accurately what’s happening on the field. It’s basic journalism to report the who, what, when, where and why – and omitting the fact there’s a No Hitter in progress is just as bad as neglecting to tell people the score of the game. As a broadcaster, your audience deserves better.

And if a play-by-play announcer really had the power to break up a No Hitter – he wouldn’t be in the broadcast booth. He’d be someplace with a higher calling. Pun intended.

Just tell it like it is.

Imagine going to a ballgame and seeing two 20-foot aquariums behind home plate. Or how about a Bobblehead museum inside the ballpark? Maybe you’d like to take a swim while the visiting team is at the plate? If so, then you’ve got to visit the brand new Marlins Park in Miami:

Slide Show of Marlins Park

Unlike nearly all the modern “retro” ballparks made of brick that evoke memories of earlier times, this park is ultra modern in every sense of the word, with concrete, steel and glass glistening under the hot Florida sun.

There’s even a sculpture in left-center field replete with flying fish and flamingos that dance whenever a Marlin hits a home run. Sadly for the home town fans, that doesn’t happen often in Miami, where the team offense has been stagnant. The Marlins in fact rank 23rd out of 30 in home run production this year:

Home Runs By Team

Yes Miami has only 15 home runs, compared to the Yankees 34, so there won’t be many “splash hits” if you take in a game. Yet with a natural grass surface under a retractable roof, mahi-mahi tacos and Cuban sandwiches, the Marlins have got me hooked – and this is a stadium I want to visit and experience up close and personal.

Why The Marlins Have Me Hooked

And who knows, perhaps one day if Matt and I can make it there, I’ll add a new chapter to Baseball Between Us.