Miguel Tejada
Lance Berkman
Miguel Cabrera
Troy Glaus
Jermaine Dye
David Wright
David Ortiz
Ryan Howard
Sadly, I know when this starts (5 pm PT) unlike the World Cup Final which I was off by an hour on. sobs
Although if the first pitch of this gets thrown at 5 pm PT, I will be very surprised. You need at least 15 minutes of pointless introductions and perhaps they need to hire someone to carry Chris Berman's ego to PNC Park. And Joe Morgan needs to be there to provide expert commentary like "To hit a home run, you really need to hit the ball in the air."
Chris Berman's ego isn't carried. Already inflated, it floats; it's just a matter of getting it over the walls so that it may safely descend inside the confines of the ballpark.
2 I believe Joe Morgan will be hosting a special edition of "Productive Out Derby" immediately following the Home Run Derby. Contestants will see how many ground balls they can hit to the right side of the infield with their scores adjusted for how many teammates congratulate them when they return back to the dugout.
Productive Out Derby will air on tape delay from 3 a.m to 3:06 a.m. on ESPNNews, book-ended by Tom Emansky commercials.
How about it determines if we have another World Baseball Classic?
Keep track of the Futures Game over four years. If the US takes a majority of the games, Bud Selig declares U.S. Baseball Superiority and the WBC is cancelled. If the World takes a majority, the WBC is scheduled. If each takes two, there's a one-game playoff.
On a more serious note, I know that Fox was saying that "This one counts," but I recall Bob pointing out that baseball and the players had not yet agreed that this one would, in fact, count. What's the final determination? Does this one count or not?
I think it would be wonderful for the Home Run Derby if, in addition to Berman, ESPN also tapped the talents of John Sterling and Hawk Harrelson for the play-by-play. That way, you'd have the Great Trinity of Contrived Home Run Calls.
And by "wonderful," I mean "haunting and soul-crushing."
Let's see, how could we make the Home Run Derby count too? I know! Whoever wins the derby, every time they get an intentional walk, they get to go straight to second base for the rest of the season!
Okay -- I got it -- combining the idea in #12, how about...
...if the league of the player who wins the home run derby wins the all-star game, then the all-star game counts.
If the other league wins the all-star game, it doesn't count, and Bud Selig has to dress up as the San Diego Chicken and flip a coin to determine home-field advantage in the world series.
It's double-or-nothing for the All-Star events! Plus, there's the added possibility that Bud Selig would have to get into the Chicken costume! Ratings gold!
I think they should just play for the big money, ya know, maybe $2000 for the winner and $1000 for the runner up. And maybe a cool $500 if someone hits three in a row.
20 I hadn't thought of that, but they sure do seem tough. In fact, listening to them makes me feel tough. Now I want to come to your city and scare Marilyn Manson. Or whatever they said.
These GOBs are Big and Rich. I don't remember where I saw it, but there was a show over the weekend about this year's version of "Are You Ready for Some Football?" Big and Rich weren't invited, but Charlie Daniels, Little Richard, Bootsy Collins, the guy who isn't the singer from Aerosmith, and half a dozen other big shots are sitting in with Hank Williams Jr.
Big and Rich play on one of Williams' new songs, "That's How They Do It In Dixie," available in stores now.
This has been your music minute with AS, now back to the show.
It disturbs me a little that the home run derby chat is on a pace to destroy the World Cup Final chat comment record (or any WC match, as earlier ones had more action I recall). Of course, it my help that the home run derby is 15 hours long.
39:
i think it has something to do with the fact that the WC was interesting to watch while the HR derby needs supplemental entertainment - like how Kevin Smith movies are really only good with a commentary track - oh! A golden ball!
Is anyone willing to admit to watching the HR Derby marathon on ESPN Classic today? I saw 5 minutes of it and caught McGwire complaining about the pitches his pitcher was tossing.
Well, since the Pirates are so miserably bad that they never get on TV, it's something to actually see what the relatively new stadium and the skyline look like.
Did you know that Pittsburgh's main industries now are financial services and health care?
I can't believe I'm watching this. Every year! There needs to be a K-chip in my TV that replaces everything John Kruk says with smooth jazz stylings. My next TV will have the HDK-chip, which will actually deliver enormous painful electroshocks to Kruk's person.
60 Did you hear those idiots crticizing Abreu earlier? Kruk ridiculed him by saying "but his OPS is good" or something like that. Of course Phillips dismissed him as using sabermetrics.
You know what I would pay money to see? An all-pitcher HR Derby. They could have Carlos Zambrano, Mike Hampton, Bronson Arroyo, and for comedy's sake, a couple of AL guys who can't hit at all. Who wouldn't watch that? And it would be over much faster, too.
Observation: The Home Run Derby isn't interesting.
Question 1: Did Soriano decline to participate in the derby or was he not asked?
Question 2: Why are they called "sabremetrics" and not just "statistics." I mean, I realize the name comes from SABR, which I guess has promoted or developed some of them, but I don't really get it.
Statistics are just numbers. Sabermetrics is the scientific discipline of making those numbers prove trading for Jason Kendall's bloated contract is a good idea.
I didn't pick anybody in protest of Matt Holliday's exclusion. But I did attend every game of the Mets-Rockies series in Denver last year and poke every Mets fan I saw in the ribs and say, "How 'bout that David Wright? Huh? Huh? Huh?" I plan on doing the same at the Cubs-Mets series in Chicago this weekend.
How many times can they be amazed by balls that barely make it over the fence? Is it just justification for their existence to say "he missed that, but he's so strong that blah blah blah blah blah".
I changed over to watch the local news. Just a quick public service announcement: when fleeing a news channel, in your car, it's best not to stall it out. It makes you look guilty.
84 I hate being called out for my lies. However, you have defiled my favorite word in the english language "liar". I just love the way it's spelled. I wish we pronounced it that way more often: "lay-ahr".
85- She was a little pudgey, maybe, but I really must take exception to your calling her a pig. She's just a baby! People like you are the reason so many young women have body issues.
104 And better than most of my students, who are Ohio farmboys and girls who don't think Spanish should be spoken in the US. I don't mean to criticize you, bluebleeder.
My 7-year old nephew who came to the US from Guatemala last Thanksgiving has already learned to speak English, eliminating the one person I could carry on a coherent conversation in Spanish..
Now I talk to him and it's "Hi, Uncle Bob how are you doing?"
106
Which part of Ohio? I had never been in the state until 2004 when I went to the SABR convention in Cincinnati and then rode with a friend to Cleveland and Pittsburgh.
On matters of language and offense taking: do you think the Itallian guy really called Zidane the son of a terrorist whore? What language would he have said it in?
Zidane played in Italy for six years, so I'm sure he knows some Italian. Since Zidane grew up in Algeria and France, he probably knows more than one language.
You know I didn't see until relatively late in the World Cup that English was the "official" language for the referees and everyone on the officiating crews had to past a language test. So our mother tongue is the language of business, aviation, and yellow cards alike.
110 I'm in Columbus. I am a graduate student and I teach classes at the Ohio State University. My students are a mix of the very urbane and the very hickish. I don't like cities, but Columbus is a pretty politically advanced town in terms of its radical organization... umm, what was your question? I think I'll post on here more often if you like to see people offended. That's the one thing I'm good at.
The refs may use English as their lingua franca, but I'm certain that Materazzi said something to Zidane in Italian. There's no way he could have played six years of top flight soccer in Italy without picking up profanities.
No, I thought you might have been closer to Cincinnati. That city definitely gave off an air of being in the Bible Belt. I didn't see Columbus, so I was unable to add to my list of state capitals visited.
Nicest state capital (as a place to visit):
Santa Fe, NM
I'll have to say that the worst is Phoenix for the simple reason that one summer night when I lived there, it was 3am, and I decided it was safe to get out of the air conditioner and enjoy some natural air. I went outside to discover that it was 103 degrees and there was a lightning storm. I've never felt so trapped.
Wouldn't a family moving to the US from China get a Chinese-speaking real estate agent. There are only about, oh, 2000-3000 of them in Southern California.
138 I lived in Hamilton. I despised both Trenton and Princeton (Trenton for every reason, and Princeton, though beautiful, for its arrogant people whom I knew from the Princeton Junction station).
Either that, or the family is actually NOT from China but are from Vancouver and speak perfect English and the real estate agent is just assuming. Plus, the family isnt even Chinese.
144 The perfect name is the one that belonged to one of my sister's OB-GYNs, who was an Asian woman with a rather thick accent, whose name was Latisha O'Brien.
139 I spent a summer in Phoenix back in 1971 (I think that was the year). My biggest objection to the city is that's it's growing so quickly that it will soon reach Casa Grande to the south, which means junk architecture and strip malls that much closer to Tucson. And Tucson has enough of that on its own.
The one time I've ever been to Phoenix was to change planes. It would've been fine, but I was flying to Burbank, so I not only had to change planes, but also airlines, which meant I had to go outside to get from the Delta terminal to the America West terminal. It was 106° outside.
I got home from work a little bit after 7, puttered around a bit, and then by 7:12 flipped on the TV.
The second round was just wrapping up.
Good Lord, I can't imagine how some of you folks have managed to endure 150-plus minutes of unadulterated Berman -- interrupted occasionally by his moral equivalent Krukie -- without turning to a life of horrible crime.
167- To be fair, there was that whole state capitol digression! And some soccer. There would have been more soccer talk, but I got in trouble the last time I said what I thought about the way soccer players fight.
183- C'mon! Really? Would you dump yourself in the Allegheny river to get a fake contest baseball? I may not have anything to look forward to (who looks forward to being an old curmudgeon?), but at least I'm only all wet metaphorically speaking.
This is not only the greatest thread of all time, and not only did I tivo the Home Run Derby, but now I'm going to try to go back and read the thread as I watch it.
It had a chance of getting even saltier, but nobody could figure out how to phrase the question that 146 practically insists be asked: how many does she need?
I'd trade places with them in a 2nd. Sitting on a Kayak in any river and hitting the water in July sounds like a bit more fun then sitting in front of computer posting on the HRD thread. But hey, we all have different things that float our boats.
191- Yeah? Well, there you go. I've always had trouble understanding people who like fun. I know I can be obnoxious, but I hope you don't think too badly of me; I don't really think they should be thrown in jail. Maybe just community service. 8^)
You're with me, leather.
Maybe next year, he can host, and they can have the "Doubles Derby."
Productive Out Derby will air on tape delay from 3 a.m to 3:06 a.m. on ESPNNews, book-ended by Tom Emansky commercials.
Buster Olney will be around for the Productive Out Derby.
I'm betting on David Eckstein in that one.
Hmm, if only there were a way to make such a game count. I'm only watching if it counts!
Keep track of the Futures Game over four years. If the US takes a majority of the games, Bud Selig declares U.S. Baseball Superiority and the WBC is cancelled. If the World takes a majority, the WBC is scheduled. If each takes two, there's a one-game playoff.
On a more serious note, I know that Fox was saying that "This one counts," but I recall Bob pointing out that baseball and the players had not yet agreed that this one would, in fact, count. What's the final determination? Does this one count or not?
And by "wonderful," I mean "haunting and soul-crushing."
A LO PROFUNDO! NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!
Diganle no a esa pelota!
Best home run call in the biz!
http://tinyurl.com/z4d7f
That story was from June 13 and MLBPA thought they were going to agree to it. But I haven't found an official followup.
...if the league of the player who wins the home run derby wins the all-star game, then the all-star game counts.
If the other league wins the all-star game, it doesn't count, and Bud Selig has to dress up as the San Diego Chicken and flip a coin to determine home-field advantage in the world series.
It's double-or-nothing for the All-Star events! Plus, there's the added possibility that Bud Selig would have to get into the Chicken costume! Ratings gold!
Sort of like how Johnny Fontane ruined Jack Woltz's prized starlet at his studio?
Chris, say it ain't so...
Go Glaus!
Big and Rich play on one of Williams' new songs, "That's How They Do It In Dixie," available in stores now.
This has been your music minute with AS, now back to the show.
Krukie is funny I like 'um, I can't believe I picked the same guy Kruks picked. Yikes!
that's quite a gift if she can do that.
i think it has something to do with the fact that the WC was interesting to watch while the HR derby needs supplemental entertainment - like how Kevin Smith movies are really only good with a commentary track - oh! A golden ball!
Did you know that Pittsburgh's main industries now are financial services and health care?
Observation: The Home Run Derby isn't interesting.
Question 1: Did Soriano decline to participate in the derby or was he not asked?
Question 2: Why are they called "sabremetrics" and not just "statistics." I mean, I realize the name comes from SABR, which I guess has promoted or developed some of them, but I don't really get it.
those twins are still in my top list.
Aaron Sele should give it a try.
you lier!! you picked Cabrera
it's a girl sow maybe a slap?
I never called her fat? were did you get that from.
I don't even know what that means, The only thing I'm guilty of is bad grammer!
big papi next
Now I talk to him and it's "Hi, Uncle Bob how are you doing?"
I know all in good fun.
Which part of Ohio? I had never been in the state until 2004 when I went to the SABR convention in Cincinnati and then rode with a friend to Cleveland and Pittsburgh.
Cincinnati seemed very Southern to me.
The refs may use English as their lingua franca, but I'm certain that Materazzi said something to Zidane in Italian. There's no way he could have played six years of top flight soccer in Italy without picking up profanities.
No, I thought you might have been closer to Cincinnati. That city definitely gave off an air of being in the Bible Belt. I didn't see Columbus, so I was unable to add to my list of state capitals visited.
Nicest state capital (as a place to visit):
Santa Fe, NM
Worst state capital;
Lansing, MI
But Lansing, MI is home to America's most confusing sign.
I-69 is now I-96
I-96 is now I-69
http://tinyurl.com/fu5kj
Are the little kids all stars or something, I thought I heard something like that.
Or they just know the right people.
Oh wait, scratch that. I forgot about the actual All-star game from last year.
You are correct.
I've been to Montpelier, VT which has a population of 9000 or so. Everything in Vermont seems like it's part of a model railroad set.
But that real estate agent DOES speak Chinese. Sure, it's only one word but it's the thought that counts - right?
Either that, or the family is actually NOT from China but are from Vancouver and speak perfect English and the real estate agent is just assuming. Plus, the family isnt even Chinese.
That commercial was filmed at LAX. And the agent's card has an LA address on it.
One of the top real estate agents in my town has the surname Middleman, which is the perfect name.
We don't have that problem here in L.A.
But at least it was a dry heat...
I have a friend who just moved over there, I told him he would regret it & from what I'm hearing I think I was right.
At least in the NL West, the mediocre teams tend to hover ABOVE .500.
We can divide ourselves both racially and politically!
"Lo Duca's gonna throw those meat-a balls!"
...and will Abreu's one round total of 25(?) from last year be topped all total?
The second round was just wrapping up.
Good Lord, I can't imagine how some of you folks have managed to endure 150-plus minutes of unadulterated Berman -- interrupted occasionally by his moral equivalent Krukie -- without turning to a life of horrible crime.
Your all wet. A young curmudgeon with nothing to look forward to except being an old one.
I predict the winning team will have "League" in its name.
If I did that, just shoot me.
As for 193, you are not obnoxious, but entertaining. A thin line. But don't use emoticons, it makes me forget your wit.
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