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Random musings from a transplanted midwesterner

Entries in this blog

Red Wings at Pawtucket, August 3 2018

[re-posted from the night's minor league summary thread...]   I was in attendance at Pawtucket last night, so let me offer some additional impressions and details.   First, a minor correction: the Red Wings' final run scored on a wild pitch. The bases were not loaded when Motter walked, but when ball-four skittered past Mike Ohlman, Edgar Corcino on third scored anyway. He was there because of another wild pitch on the previous batter.   I don't have a lot to say about Pawtucket's players in thi
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Lollygagging?

I happened upon this nice leaping stab by Polanco from a few days ago:   https://mediadownloads.mlb.com/mlbam/mp4/2018/07/03/2224124283/1530583378940/asset_2500K.mp4   Question: on a ball hit to the left side, does Brian Dozier have anything better to do than make a beeline for second base, on the small chance it's caught and they might try to double off the runner? The runner has to change direction, Dozier could have been close to full speed by that point. Seems like he was napping there.
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Pawtucket Red Sox game - Sunday July 8

Red Sox relief prospect Ty Buttrey came up in one of the discussions about trade talks. As luck would have it, I could drop Mrs Ash at Logan Airport today and head down I-95 in time for the last game in Pawtucket before their All-Star Break. So I did. The pretext is scouting a trade candidate, but of course I am not a scout. I'll tell you what I saw, and offer some opinions, and hopefully keep the two straight, one from another.   Even better luck: the Yankees AAA affiliate in Scranton/Wilkes-Ba
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Baseball Website Find of the Day (warning: lame!)

Looking to kill a few minutes? Have a look at this peculiar project a ten-year old some knucklehead enterprising person took the time to construct via a series of posts in 2011-12.   http://burncardburn.com   Follow it through to the end, and in total there's about five pages of images and videos of captioned baseball cards, defaced baseball cards, intentionally damaged baseball cards, burnt baseball cards, and, ..., well, more captioned and defaced and damaged and burnt baseball cards. PS: hope
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1979 Pittsburgh Pirates

Attending a nice panel discussion at SABR this morning, including 1979 Pirates champions John Candelaria and Grant Jackson. They reminded the audience that the team started out 12-18, and were in fourth place at the all star break. Their recollection was that there was still a long way to go, and they just continued to play the games one at a time. While the odds are against our 2018 Twins, it wouldn't be unprecedented to go all the way. The panel reminds me that the players have to just shut ou
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Surprise Saguaros game, Saturday Nov 11

I offer a brief writeup for the final game of my three-game Arizona Fall League visit, which the host Surprise Saguaros lost to the Peoria Javelinas 11-10 in disappointing fashion Saturday night.   The headline from the game of course would be Lamont Wade's concussion injury from a collision in right-center field. I posted a few photos in reply to that thread, found here. He was injured in the top of the second inning, before having a turn at bat.   I haven't talked too much about the other team
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Surprise Saguaros game, Friday Nov 10

Just a quick summary of Twins-oriented doings, at the AFL game in Peoria Friday evening from which Our Heroes emerged victorious.     Because every one of the Twins pitchers appeared in the Thursday game, we did not expect to see any Friday night, and thus were not disappointed on that count. However, perhaps in compensation, all three of the Twins batters were in the starting lineup and played all game.   Lamont Wade batted sixth in the order. He achieved sac fly RBI in each of the second and
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Surprise Saguaros game, Thursday Nov 9

Not to take away from Steve Lein's excellent AFL summaries, but USAFChief and I (plus special guest ashburydavid) were in attendance at Surprise Stadium this afternoon, and we got to see several of our Twins prospects appear in the 6-2 loss to the Glendale Desert Dogs, so I thought I'd write something up, given all this Twins game action. Chief might chime in with his own perspectives, if he ever gets free of rush-hour traffic to his hotel.   Basically, nobody really impressed me, I'm sorry to s
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Post Hoc, October 8, 2017

Not that anyone asked, but in the past day or so I posted in these Twins Daily threads... Who, besides Robbie Grossman himself, deserves credit for Grossman's improved defensive stats in the outfield, as well as improvement in the eye-test according to yours truly? My general recollection has been less wandering about in search of fly balls. If Jeff Pickler is in charge of coaching the outfielders, kudos to him. Now, about Buxton banging repeatedly into center field walls... On a post-season br
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An unexpected afternoon at Fenway

I stumbled into a free ticket to the Red Sox game against the Pirates on Thursday. It was a makeup game and a guy seated near me also said he'd gotten his tickets free from someone. (He also insisted that Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City is new, so our conversation was not illuminating for me. Only USAFChief is entitled to consider Kauffman "new".)   I anticipated that attendance might be sparse - April games tend to be attended in the low 30,000s rather than the high 30,000s anyway, and a makeup
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Back Fields in Motion - March 24-27, 2017

After my most recent blog entry from Ft. Myers, my wife arrived to take part in the fun in the sun. Unsurprisingly, time spent at the keyboard diminished to near-zero until I got home. This post represents a condensed and abbreviated review of the rest of my stay in Florida.   All baseball and no beach makes Ash a dull boy, at least in certain people's eyes. At left, you'll see circumstantial evidence that Friday morning was devoted to Ft. Myers Beach. Also, below, someone there went to the trou
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Back Fields in Motion - March 23, 2017

Thursday morning in Fort Myers, I resolved to take some pictures for once. Arrival was a little after 9, in time again for calisthenics (shown, left). Either that, or the prospects were being put to work erecting a new fence.   Fellow TD moderator USAFChief arrived shortly after this, and we shared a great day soaking up all that Twins spring training offers at the back fields.   After the players were warmed up, instruction began. Sometimes they do a lot of standing and listening at spring trai
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Back Fields in Motion - March 22, 2017

Today the big league club was on the road, and I did not follow them, returning to my haunts at CenturyLink Sports Complex.   It was a bit of an abbreviated day on the back fields for me, as I didn't arrive until 11, and the players had already departed for their lunchtime break because the games were slated for noon. And then that noon start meant the game was over well before 3:00. Fellow TD moderator ChiTownTwinsFan joined me to watch the Cedar Rapids single-A squad (or at least the momentary
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Back Fields in Motion - March 21, 2017

Greetings from sunny Florida! I'm lucky enough to be in Ft Myers for a week during Spring Training.   Today I spent the day mainly on the back fields, watching the minor league prospects. Normally I call these reports Hammond Notes (I must have been under the impression everyone remembers Hammond Organs when I thunk up that one), but Hammond is strictly speaking the major league field here, and it would be clunky to title today's entry CenturyLink Sports Complex Notes. The photo here is of all t
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A few photos from Oakland

A few photos from Tuesday night's and Wednesday afternoon's games in Oakland.     Possibly one of the last photos taken of Miguel Sano before his trip to the 15-day DL. Notice the tear in his left trouser leg. Left hamstring injury next time up to bat... coincidence? I think not.   "Sorry son, that's strike three. By the way, I forgot to say, welcome back to the majors."   Gulls just wanna have fun.   Another Dull relief appearance. God, I slay me.   Reggie Jackson, Rollie Fingers, and (no
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Oakland game, May 31 2016

Quick report from Oakland: Sano trying to swipe at that one flyball "triple" by Burns in the second inning didn't look any prettier from a seat right behind the fair-foul pole than it must have from the normal camera view.   In fairness, the A's right fielder (I think it was still Coughlan) returned the favor almost identically, in the fifth as a favor to Grossman.   Ragged game.
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An Unexpected Night At Fenway

My wife phoned to say someone at work was looking to sell a couple of bleacher tickets at Fenway. So, mere hours later (well, 30 is "mere", no?), I was on the Worcester commuter train, getting off at Yawkey Station.   Fun game versus the Marlins. Tied 1-1 for a long while, then the Sox starter Miley tired at around the 100-pitch mark and the score became 3-1 at the seventh inning stretch. But the home team came right back and loaded the bases against Cishek in relief of Haren, with a single, wal
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Hammond Notes - March 27

Vacation time in Ft Myers is coming to a close. We had a very fun day at the Twins spring complex today.   We arrived at 10:30 unaware the minor league games had been moved up several hours, presumably in response to the forecast of rain. I started watching the Cedar Rapids game, and then a little bird told me, "you're missing Phil Hughes". I switched over to the Miracle game, in the fifth inning.     Performing as the World's Most Expensive Bat Boy in this game was Kohl Stewart. (Lurking on th
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Hammond Notes - March 26

Special jetBlue Edition!   We took a break from Hammond Stadium for a day, and visited the Red Sox spring facilities for a game.     Before we went inside, we wandered in their minor league area. I was initially annoyed, because we went in what I thought to be an obvious direction but were stopped by one of the senile highly experienced hard of hearing stadium personnel, and directed toward the other side of the complex. At first I was thinking it looked like a wild goose chase (or snipe hunt)
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Hammond Notes - March 25

Today we skipped the major league game and spent our morning and afternoon on the back fields. But only after watching some of the major leaguers doing drills on the front field. Looked like they were concentrating on the pitchers making their throws to bases - I wonder if the snafus in yesterday's game had anything to do with that.   Had a nice chat there with TDers John Bonnes, Jim Crikket, Halsey Hall, and beckmt (I believe only one of these names appears on any of these gentlemen's birth ce
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Hammond Notes - March 24

We allowed ourselves the luxury of arriving sometime after 11, and learned that the minor leaguers would not play at noon but at 1. Since we had cheap-seat tickets for the big league game, we chatted outside the park with Thrylos then went on in. Tomorrow we'll stay outside and watch the prospects again.   Warm day, starting out overcast but changing to partly sunny. Sunscreen advised.     Ricky Nolasco had a very nice outing, particularly in the early going when I noted three backward-K strike
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Hammond Notes - March 23

Here is a photo of Stephen Wickens warming up this morning. Are you sad to see this? I'm not, and you shouldn't be either:     Why? Because: No One Mourns The Wickens.   Hey, we went to Miami the other night to see Wicked, and I had to get this groaner out of my system once and for all. (Really??? He leads off with THIS?) So. After missing a couple of days of spring training Friday and Saturday, and then Sunday's minor league activities cancelled for a well earned day off, I was back at the fi
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