Posts Tagged ‘Mark Kotsay’

When Olympic Spirit Meets The Major Leagues Posted by Brian Filipiak in Boston Red Sox August 28th, 2008

Like most Americans, I watched in sheer amazement as Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou and tens of thousands of his fellow countrymen and women transformed the Bird’s Nest into the world’s most colossal IMAX Theater, where Cirque du Soleil met the millennial history of China … well, Tibet and Tiananmen Square excluded.

Anyway, politics aside, the opening ceremony of the 29th Olympiad was truly something to behold. And like any good lead, the presentation just grabbed me hook, line, and sinker. I mean, a giant, LED scroll-thingy? It really doesn’t get any better than that.

Sure, I could nit-pick over post-production cartoon fireworks or a computer generated Chinese girl lip-synching “Ode to the Motherland” (or something like that). But let’s face it, this opening ceremony was pretty akin to baseball over the past 20 years: artificially enhanced.

Hell, even the weather was unnaturally altered. A few hours prior to the opening ceremony, the Chinese fired over one thousand rain dispersal rockets into the ominous sky in order to fend off some pesky rain clouds.

Speaking of which, can you imagine Bud Selig launching an air strike against a threatening stack of nimbus clouds hovering about Fenway Park minutes before the first pitch? All I know is that the result probably would end in a tie.

But I’m way off course, here. The point is, you—the 2008 Summer Olympics—wowed me, and I was your humble, mindless viewing servant until August 24. Read more

Buyers and Sellers Posted by Jason Farmer in Oakland Athletics July 20th, 2008

Well, it is officially that time of year. With the trade deadline just around the corner, teams are either going to start their pushes for the playoffs or prep for next season. While some teams are always in the same selling mode, there are always a few surprising teams out to buy.

This year’s the surprise buying team is the Tampa Bay Rays. They have seem to come out of nowhere and are contending. They started the second half the season one half game out of first place (behind the Boston Red Sox).

The Oakland Athletics however, look to be in a sellers market. This is a different feeling for the A’s fan. For the past few years the A’s have contended each year.

With all the injuries last year, the A’s were not contenders but they didn’t sell out their player’s mid-season either. But that changed during the off-season.

During the previous off-season, the A’s became sellers. The team was involved in four trades that affected the team this year right away. Read more

Anatomy of a Train Wreck Posted by John Lopresti in Atlanta Braves, The Bullpen April 18th, 2008

“We’re a long, long way from home, Bobbie.  Home’s a long, long way from us.”

Bruce Springsteen’s “Devils & Dust” 

We’re going to acknowledge it once, and then we’re going to forget that road trip, one of the worst in recent memory, ever happened, ok?  David O’Brien of the Atlanta Journal Constitution does a nice job of surveying the wasteland. 

We can add to that list, of course, the fact that Peter Moylan’s elbow is most likely going to require season-ending reconstructive surgery, and that despite John Smoltz’s five beautiful innings last night, he, Tom Glavine, and Tim Hudson combined innings for eight innings in their last respective starts.  Still, it’s always darkest before the dawn, and immediately after, you drop two out of three to a team with a $21 million payroll.  Let’s find some silver lining to get us through this rough patch.

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