One More Day!

That’s right. You only have one more day to enter my JuneContest. One more day to enter to win a wonderful book. One more day to scour your phone, or computer, or camera, looking for a picture of you in Section 36. One more day to send it to me to enter! The contest will end at 12:36 PM tomorrow! Don’t miss out.

I already have several great entries. Don’t let one of them win just because you were too lazy to e-mail me a picture. You’ll regret it if you do! So, send in those pictures.

Good Luck!

The Problem Facing Will Middlebrooks

In baseball, timing is everything. Timing the delivery to the plate. Timing your swing. Or, in the case of Will Middlebrooks and Ben Cherington, timing a trade.

This is one thing that Theo was pretty good at. When he traded a popular player, the schedule often worked in his favor. Trading Manny? Better make sure your next ten games or so are against lesser opponents. That way the team will win right after the trade, and make the deal look good. When Ben Cherington traded Kevin Youkilis, he got that part pretty well take care of. He got the next nine games to be against Toronto, Seattle, and Oakland. The Sox should cruise through those series. The trade will look better with every victory. But, he didn’t exactly do Will Middlebrooks any favors.

Middlebrooks was off to a blazing hot start to his career. He can’t keep up that pace. Mike Schmidt would have had trouble keeping up that pace. He was going to cool off. The problem came down to timing.

Kevin Youkilis was traded at Middlebrooks’s peak. He was even named the AL player of the week for the week prior to the trade. That’s a pretty good peak. Then Youkilis was traded. The third base job was given to Middlebrooks. I actually heard a radio moron ask on Monday if Will would be able to handle the pressure of being an everyday third baseman. They were already setting him up. Would he be able to keep up his production under the intense pressure of being a starter in Boston? Of course the radio moron knew the answer was “no.” Middlebrooks would not be the player of the week every week for the rest of his career. His production was going to fall off. Bingo. A story was created.

Naturally, Middlebrooks has cooled a bit. He has something like one hit since Youkilis was traded. Chances are he won’t be going 3-3 tonight against King Felix. Even if he goes 1-3 in Seattle, the radio moron will be able to talk about him batting .150 since the trade. The story he invented will suddenly have legs. And that’s all the media needs. Legs. Callers will call in supporting this ridiculous theory. Callers will call in opposing the idea. Then, writers will ask Middlebrooks about it. Is the pressure getting to you? They’ll ask his teammates. Is Will crumbling under the expectations that come with being a starter? He’s only 1-11. He made that error, remember? The made up story keeps going.

If only Cherington had traded Youkilis this weekend instead of last. Middlebrooks could have been spared all this nonsense. He could have come back next week and performed well. Then, instead of “crumbling under pressure” he could have “seized his opportunity.”

The only difference would have been timing. 

Why are Pictures Repeated so Often?

It’s another common complaint heard throughout the baseball card collecting blogs. Why do the card companies keep using the same pictures over and over from one year to the next, or from brand to brand? Why can’t they just find another picture? There have to be more of them out there. Lots more.

I can almost understand reusing pictures of the really old players. There can’t be more than a handful of pictures of Tris Speaker or Cy Young. It’s not like every schmuck in the stands had a camera snapping away. So, I almost give the card companies credit for doing the best they can with a limited selection. Cropping the picture differently or using a “painted” version is understandable under the circumstances. I assume it’s fairly similar for the players of the fifties. Again, there are a limited number of pictures of those guys as well. The modern players? That’s less forgivable. How do they not have 1000 pictures of every current player in the major leagues? Are they simply lazy?

I wondered that until I noticed my David Ortiz Wheaties box. It has a nice picture of Ortiz winning game 4 of the 2004 ALCS. How can I be sure? Because I have a print of that exact picture hanging on my wall. Huh? The same picture? How did that happen? It was a playoff game. There were cameras on the field. I saw them. It was extra innings. I’m guessing one or two of those cameras were pointed at Ortiz. Where are all the other pictures that were taken? Why wasn’t the Wheaties box a picture taken a step or two after the 8x10? Is General Mills lazy too?

Or is it the photographers taking the pictures? No, I don’t think they’re lazy. But, are they only allowing one or two pictures to leave their cameras? Do they scan through picture after picture to select the one perfect picture from their day? Are they protecting their professional integrity by limiting the number of pictures out there? They can’t let that picture circulate. Ortiz’s hand is at a funny angle. They can’t release that picture, the guy in the background is making a weird face. So, everyone has to pick from this one really good shot I got. That’s it.

So, maybe Topps isn’t lazy. Maybe their monopoly isn’t making them just mail it in. (I never really bought that explanation anyway.) Maybe even in this digital age, there are still only a limited number of images to choose from. Maybe that’s the real answer.

They’re just slaves to the photographers.

Manny Was Framed

So, four years ago, Manny Ramirez was caught on camera in a scuffle in the dugout during a game. What a horrible teammate he was! Get him out of town! Now! Yesterday, the Sox shipped out the other member of the scuffle, Kevin Youkilis, because he was a grumpy, bad teammate. Hmm.

When do the reports come out that Youkilis threatened to have his injuries “flare up” and miss time unless he was made the starter over Middlebrooks? That seems to be the company line whenever a popular player is traded for odd reasons.

I was never much of a Youkilis fan, myself. I didn’t hate him. I was glad he was on the team. He just never really did anything for me. I’ve mentioned before that it was the case with most of the current team. I have trouble naming a favorite player, but it definitely wasn’t Youkilis. That being said, I don’t think he should have been traded. They should have traded Will Middlebrooks.

I think Youkilis can still be a decent third baseman. The White Sox certainly seem to think so. I have no doubt that he could have finished the year without killing the team. I don’t have a problem with his attitude either. If the team can’t play baseball because one person is grumpy, it’s the team that has the problem. Besides, if you trade Middlebrooks, Youkilis gets less grumpy.

But why trade Middlebrooks instead of Youk? Look what you got in return. A no-name pitcher, and a utility guy. Oh, and you had to pay a ton of cash. If the best you can do is addition by subtraction, that’s not good enough. I hate seeing trades go through where fans of the other team are dancing in the streets. But, on the other hand, what could you have gotten for Middlebrooks? A lot more than that. The Yankees got Michael Pineda for an unproven DH with potential. What could the Sox get for an unproven third baseman with potential? You’d be selling Middlebrooks very high. You’d be able to actually improve the team. Why not go that route?

But, the Sox chose Youkilis to go. What does that do from here? Not much. The Sox were playing Middlebrooks anyway. It makes what they’ve been doing permanent way from here on out. It keeps Gonzalez where he belongs. It keeps Ortiz in the line-up. It lets the Sox ride the hot bat of Middlebrooks.

Let’s hope his joy ride continues.

One Week Left!

That’s right everybody. There is only one more week remaining in my June contest. Seven more days are all that remain for you to send me pictures of yourself in Section 36 and have a chance to win a fabulous book! So, if you have a picture of yourself in Section 36, get off your duff and send it in. If you don’t have a picture of yourself in Section 36 yet, you have five more games at Fenway to go and take a picture. Otherwise you’ll have to find another Section 36 to take your picture in. Hop to it!

Time is winding down!