My brother put some more photos up. Here are some more of my faves.
Adam Jones evaluating his bat
Longoria going for the catch
The drama of the windup
Ballgames aren't all excitement every moment
My brother took a lot of Longoria pictures partly because we were sitting close to him, but mostly because he's my favorite player.
About to make the out at first
I love the moments in action shots that just seem physically impossible.
Kinda like this one
Baseball-themed ads are funny
Aki makes the grab while Bartlett watches on
The Rays didn't have a great hitting day...
It’s time for Wednesday Morning Quarterback, your weekly sports round-up.
15 April may mean the tax man is coming around, but I like to think of it from a better perspective: Jackie Robinson Day. That’s right, on 15 April 1947 Jackie Robinson debuted for the Branch Rickey’s Brooklyn Dodgers, finally breaking the color barrier in baseball and paving the way for civil rights in America. Jackie Robinson was a hero and I’m glad that baseball honors him each year on this day by allowing players to wear Robinson’s league-wide retired #42.
“A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.” -Jackie Robinson
Now for the standings and predictions:
AL East
Baltimore Orioles Toronto Blue Jays 0.5 Games Back (GB) New York Yankees 2.0 GB Tampa Bay Rays 2.0 GB Boston Red Sox 4.0 GB
Surprising as the standings are today, I don’t think this can realistically continue throughout the year. The current bottom three are just too good for this to stay like this all year. A more realistic October looks like:
Rays Red Sox Yankees Orioles Blue Jays
Most of sports news America has the Jays above the Os and the Rays anywhere between first and third. I think the Rays outplay both the Yanks and the Sox and I’ve seen the Orioles do some major slugging. Even with the rotation difficulties they’re projected to have, I think their offense might be able to make up for it, but not enough to beat the Yankees. If the Yankees can’t get their act together with their bullpen and starting pitching (CC is looking better, but Wang is awful), things could be further shaken up.
NL East
Florida Marlins Atlanta Braves 1.0 GB Philadelphia Phillies 2.0 GB New York Mets 3.0 GB Washington Nationals 6.0 GB
The Nats are off to an awful start, mostly thanks to the incredible Florida Marlins who are a MLB-best 6-1 right now. They’re riding high off of good hitting and pitching, but I don’t think they have the depth to stay that high. Their hitting is a little too inconsistent and the rest of the division is just so darn good. That being said, I don’t think that the Phils can win the East again, mostly thanks to an ailing Cole Hamels, so I see them coming in definitely behind the Mets who have a rebuilt bullpen. Nats will continue to suck. The Braves are good, but I don’t know if they’re contenders yet. We’ll have to see as the season progresses.
Mets Marlins Phillies Braves Nationals
AL Central
Kansas City Royals Chicago White Sox 0.5 GB Detroit Tigers 1.0 GB Minnesota Twins 1.5 GB Cleveland Indians 4.0 GB
Trey Hillman is doing a heck of a job with his Royals so far this year, but I don’t think they can stay atop the Central all year long. I predict that the newly rebuilt and re-motivated Tigers will do much better, Cleveland will continue to suffer from whatever losing disease they have (no starting pitching), and the Twins will suffer some major losses thanks to Mauer’s injury. Here’s how I see it ending up:
Tigers White Sox Royals Twins Indians
I think I might be wrong with the Twins and Royals, but we’ll see when I reevaluate at the All-Star break.
NL Central
Chicago Cubs St. Louis Cardinals 0.0 GB Cincinnati Reds 1.0 GB Pittsburgh Pirates 1.0 GB Milwaukee Brewers 3.5 GB Houston Astros 4.0 GB
This one is harder for me to predict cause it’s the division I know the least about. The Cubs are on top, as most would predict, partially thanks to my boy Fukudome doing his part again. I really hope he stays strong all year this time. The Cards are tearing it up with Pujols and I think they’re a lock for second in this division. Despite being everyone’s dark horse for the NL Central, I don’t think the Reds can outplay the Cubs or the Cards. Pirates are doing well out of the gate, but for how long? The Astros just stink and the Brewers can’t compete without the pitching they had last year.
Cubs Cardinals Reds Brewers Pirates Astros
AL West
Seattle Mariners Oakland Athletics 2.0 GB Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim 2.5 GB Texas Rangers 3.0 GB
If you would have told me at the end of last year that the Mariners would be atop the AL West at any point I would have called you crazy. Some key things have changed out west, making it an open division. Injuries plague the Angels bullpen, the Athletics are just mediocre, and the Rangers stink, but somehow Wakamatsu, the new Mariners skipper, has pulled his team together to make them compete. Maybe it’s the return of Griffey, Jr. or something Wakamatsu’s putting in the water, but the team is jiving together much better and it shows.
Mariners Angels Athletics Rangers
IFF the Angels starting pitching is out for an extended period of time.
NL West
San Diego Padres Los Angeles Dodgers 1.0 GB Colorado Rockies 2.5 GB Arizona Diamondbacks 3.0 GB San Francisco Giants 3.5 GB
The Padres are off to a great, but unmaintainable start. No offense and no pitching means no winning. They’ll fall back in place. The rest of the West is pretty ugly too. San Francisco has great pitching, when Lincecum isn’t sucking, but no offense. The Rockies lost Matt Holliday, and the D-Backs have Webb on the DL. LA is easily the best in the division.
Dodgers Diamondbacks Rockies Giants Padres
Arizona is only high if Webb comes back soon. Otherwise they can’t hold on.
Those are my early season predictions, but we’ll see how well I’m doing come mid-season and adjust from there.
Pictures from the 10 April game:
Longoria at 3B
View of Camden from our sweet seats
I like this shot of Aki, even though he's in the background
Preparing for the next pitch.
Sonnanstine getting ready to throw
Rounding the bases
Adam Jones hit well that night.
Looks like a diving miss
Good swing
Scoreboard in the 2nd. Zobrist up to bat
Good hit and baserunning
Domo-kun was at the game too
A vital part of the game experience: park vendors
The end of Hendrickson's windup
Gross coming in Pete Rose style
I'm convinced this mental misstep cost us the game. Way to go Kapler...pay attention to the game!
Loosening up to make the calls
Nice, Japanese-style swing. Good work Aki
AKINORI IWAMURA! Seriously, try cheering that three times fast.
Infield meeting to slow down the O's. Longoria doesn't pay much attention, but Aki, Bartlett, Navarro, and Peña do.
One of Longoria's two homers for the night.
A disappointing loss, but a great time had by me and my friends.
The Beatles: Rock Band was announced not long ago, but with a hefty $250 price tag that had many wondering just what was going to be in the box to make it worth that much.
According to Kotaku, the game will be shipping with lots of nice, band-relevant instruments. The bundle includes:
The Beatles: Rock Band game Höfner Bass controller Ludwig Rock Band drums with classic pearl finish, metal kick petal, and replica drumheads Microphone with a stand and apparently “additional special content”
I’m holding out to find out what this additional content is supposed to be, cause $250 is a LOT of money for what is otherwise just the same instruments I’ve already got with Beatles branding on them. I don’t even know what I’d want it to be though. Remastered Beatles CDs? Naw…
I would like the ability to transfer my songs into Rock Band 2 though. That would be pretty sweet.
Deep from the trenches, it’s time for your Monday video feature: Embedded Reporter.
If you were following GDC and Nintendo’s press conference, you know that all the attendees got Rhythm Heaven DS carts. A lot of people are saying good things about it, so the question remains, is it any good? Let’s ask GT:
If that was too boring…
Insert another credit, because it’s time for your weekly video game news and you’ve just hit the Game Overview screen.
Ok, now that we’ve finished with all the villains of Final Fantasy, let’s do all the Heroes!…Just kidding, we’re gonna stick to some hard news for now and maybe come back to features sometime in the future.
That doesn’t mean we won’t be talking about Final Fantasy, though. It seems that the much better Japanese PSN store got themselves FF VII released for download for about $15. I’d say that’s a pretty cool win and hopefully it will lead into them finally creating that PS3 FF VII that everyone wishes was real, but will probably never happen.
Famitsu is teaching you how to take upskirt pictures in Monster Hunter Frontier. Instead of implying that it can be done, the Famitsu-run Monster Hunter rag printed an article called “The Way To Take The Screenshots You Want ~ What a Pantsuful world ~” to show you how to take the screenshots that you so desire.
Wanna learn about boxart design? Go to Valve’s page about Left 4 Dead’s cover to see evolution of their boxart from red with the heroes all the way to green with just a hand. A pretty neat evolution there and proof that the iterative design process that Valve is so famous for extends far beyond game design.
And last in news: Flock is out! Go try out the demo, I know I will. It’s supposed to be quite good…
UPDATE: Need the secret key in Pokemon Platinum? Here’s how to get it
If you hate the Yankees and love baseball, I’m sure you’re running around telling everyone you know about how ridiculous it is that the Yankees have lost two straight to a team that everyone expects to sit right at the bottom of the AL East. You might be mentioning to all their friends that it seems that all the money in the world can’t buy baseball skill or pointing to the Rays or Marlins as teams whose low salaries still yield success. You might wanna slow down a bit there.
Listen, I hate the Yankees as much as the next guy, but probably a bit less than your diehard Sox fan, but it’s really not fair to make definitive judgments on the team after only two days of play. Baseball’s a game where the best hitters fail seven times out of ten, many like to say, so it’s not all that surprising for a team to lose more than a few games and still make it to the playoffs. In fact, in a typical year, the best teams in the league will only win two out of every three and some will barely top a .500 win rate.
Calm down baseball fans, the Yankees aren’t down and out yet. They’re a team that you can never just count out and they’re pissed after last year. Who could have ever expected the AL East to be a three team race?
As an aside, I’m really hoping that the Red Sox and the Rays become the real rivalry in the East. After the brawl last year, the close pennant race, and what’s looking like a good series today, I really want that to be the case. It would be really cool to see Florida teams start having some fire and attention from their fans. The Fish had attendance in the upper 30ks on Opening Day. The MASN guys said that the crowd had dwindled by 32k the next day. It sucks to see so few going to the ballpark down there. At least they’re rocking the Nats…
Upcoming matchups to look out for:
Mets at Marlins starting Friday
The Fish have knocked the Mets out of the postseason for two years running. Surely the Mets are a bit bitter after last year and with their rejuvinated bullpen, will give the Fish a run for their money. It’s one thing to pound the Nats, but another thing entirely to try and take on the Mets.
Rays at Red Sox & Orioles today and for the next three games
It’ll be the rubber game of the series for the Sox and Rays tonight and it could honestly go either way. Garza vs. Dice-K. After that the Rays head down to Baltimore, the first game of which I will be attending and my first for the year.
You’ve probably heard the saying that hindsight is 20/20 on Monday morning, so just imagine how well I can call ‘em two days later on Wednesday. That’s right, it’s time for Wednesday Morning Quarterback, your weekly sports round-up.
Baseball season is back and exciting as ever! Talk about first day surprises though. Who would have guessed that C.C. Sabathia would be pounded by the O’s? Who could have expected that Griffey would hit another opening day homer? Or that the Marlins would pound the Nats? Ok…that one was a bit more predictable…
Still though, nothing better than watching my man Hanley Ramirez smash a grand slam or seeing Bonifacio round the bases like a mad man for an inside-the-park home run (or almost repeating it the next night). Tempering my joy is the 5-3 loss of the Rays to the Red Sox. That’s exactly what baseball is, though. Joy and sorrow all mixed together. Getting this pumped over three days of games is a bit premature, I’m sure, we’ve still got 159 games left to go for most teams, but it sure feels good to be back.
No predictions this week, I’d like to let them stew a bit more. I’ll put in some highlights later on today that will inevitably be gone within the week.
Until next time sports fans.
Sadly no mention of the Marlins’ amazing inside the park homer nor the grand slam. On the other hand, who doesn’t love great defensive plays instead of homers?
SportsCenter got it a little better with not one, but two Marlins plays in there, both by Bonifacio. Good stuff all around though.
Punch-Out is on it’s way back and everyone’s excited for it. How about a video montage and a comparison across its history.
Ah, Punch-Out…reminding everyone that racial stereotypes are funny…
I’ve discovered that these top plays seem to only stay active for a few days, at the most. I guess I don’t blame ESPN, their bandwidth requirements would be ridiculous. I’m gonna have to think about whether or not I continue this based on the fact that before the week is up I’ve already got posts with dead videos.
Only one baseball highlight in here, despite the fact that there were tons more (and better) highlights from these pre-season games. It’s cool, starting Sunday and Monday, we’ll see a lot more of baseball highlights.
