Finally - I get to see this! I <3 YouTube...

If you haven't heard of Me First & The Gimme Gimmes, they are a punk rock side project for members of NOFX, Lagwagon, and Foo Fighters, to name a few. They don't write their own songs, they strictly play cover songs - everything from Cat Stevens to Boyz II Men. They're a really fun band, and I like them because I enjoy the punk bands (and Foo Fighters) that the members are from.

Anyway (yes, this is about baseball!), they were hired to play Skyblast - a three-day festival after the Pirates' ballgames over the weekend. I don't know whether this had to do with A) The Gimmes' lead singer, Spike Slawson, being from Pittsburgh, B) Someone in the PR/Marketing department of the Pirates being a fan, or C) Like I mentioned earlier, the Gimmes play fun music and *can* appeal to a wide audience because they blend songs that an older generation knows with the style that a younger generation generally prefers.

However, things didn't go so well. The Gimmes were actually booed off the stage on Friday and were asked to not even bother returning for Saturday and Sunday. Slawson told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, "It was an obscene amount of money for the amount of work we did, so I can't complain. We're a punk band. Getting booed by a sports crowd makes us viable."

I would have loved to have been there, as I've always wanted to see the Gimmes play, but I'm surprised they even got the opportunity in the first place. It's too bad the crowd wasn't a little more receptive, but who cares? It's just another reason to hate Pittsburgh - you know, after stealing the Super Bowl and all...

But, I love it when two of my favorite things (punk rock and baseball) collide. Reminds me of the time when I was in 9th grade and I went to the Kingdome and got Scott Radinsky to sign his band's CD cover...during the game! Remember, the Kingdome didn't have bullpens, so I just walked down to the railing during the game, tapped Radinsky on the shoulder and asked if he would sign my CD cover. He freaked out. He thought it was so awesome that I brought that to the game and he was passing it around to the other relievers, saying things like, "See! I told you I have a band!" Good times...

My wife played a trick on me and left the computer up on Willie Bloomquist’s ESPN Player Card so that I would see it when I got home from work. She knows I despise him and thought it would be funny. She was, after all, voted “class clown” of her senior yearbook.

So, I took out my resulting anger/frustration by making this little list to show just how much Bloomquist sucks (as if you didn’t already know). Remember kids, scrappy is just a code word for “small, shitty white guy who can’t hit and gets his uniform dirty while playing bad defense and running into outs.”

In 2006…
Pitchers with more HR than Bloomquist: 16 (Carlos Zambrano has more HR this season than Bloomquist has in his entire career!)
Pitchers with as many or more 2B than Bloomquist: 8
Other players with a higher OBP than SLG (min 150 PA): 12 (Esteban German, Alex Cora, Brady Clark, David Eckstein, Jason Kendall, Jason LaRue, Brian Schneider, Brad Ausmus, Joey Gathright, Jerry Hairston Jr., Abraham Nunez).
Players with more AB and 0 HR: 3 (Miguel Cairo, Nick Punto & Joey Gathright)
Now, don’t be fooled, some of those players with a higher OBP than SLG are useful players. For instance, Esteban German’s OBP of .428 over 157 ABs makes him a useful player for the Royals, even if he’s slugging only .376. Some of those other guys are useful too, especially if you take their defense into consideration and you’re not paying them almost $12,000,000 (coughKendallcough). Willie Bloomquist, however, is a fucking joke. The fact that he’s started 39 games this year is disgusting; he shouldn’t be starting 39 games anywhere.

http://tourforthecure.org/

Think Danny Haren pitched a good game against the M's yesterday? Give him a present! http://www.crateandbarrel.com/gr/guest/viewRegistry.aspx?grid=805394 I wonder if you buy him a gift, if he'll send you a thank you note... Also, please note that I'm posting on my new MacBook for the first time (Yay!), and it's not letting me make links like I used to...hence, the big URL in the post. I'll have to tinker with this...

Ugh...sorry there haven't been any posts lately. I've been busy painting, moving and writing thank you notes. Hopefully I'll be back to reading, writing and playing video games soon!

I’m really tired from my trip and all the craziness that’s happened lately, but I just wanted to get a quick post up to let everyone know that…I’m alive! Not only am I still alive, but I’m now a married man with a nice little tan from Kauai. Life is good right now, but I’m exhausted from the trip and posting might still be a little sparse around here for the next few weeks. The new Mrs. Glassey and I are moving into our new condo, so that will be taking up a bunch of time. However, I’ll be able to post here and there and once we get everything set up, it will be much more regular (I can’t wait!!). I love writing here and if you enjoy reading this little blog, keep checking back…I won’t fade away, I promise.

 

I have the Home Run Derby, All Star Game and Futures Game waiting for me on my TiVo, so hopefully I’ll get to watch those soon. I’m going to the Aquasox on Thursday and hopefully a M’s/Red Sox game this weekend (Saturday?).

 

I seriously don’t feel like blabbing about all the other stuff that happened while I was gone, so I’ll just make a quick little list…

 

-The Reds got robbed. Seriously, they should be embarrassed. Oh, and Jonah Keri's the man...but that's not news!

- My man Doug Fister is still pitching well. Though, he's been pitching out of relief now, which bothers me. But, another Fister gush-fest is probably on the way!

- I’m about halfway through Sam Walker’s Fantasyland and it’s fantastic! I really can’t wait for August’s book club with Deanna and friends! Yay!

- Speaking of fantasy baseball…my team sucks. Boo!

-When is Hargrove going to get fired? It sounds like I missed some awful games during my vacation and I almost intentionally swerved into oncoming traffic today when he let Bloomquist make the final out of the game, as the potential go-ahead run, with his All-Star second baseman on the bench! Seriously, I sounded like Ren yelling at Stimpy while listening to that crap. And is anything more annoying than listening to a Yankees radio broadcast? Barf.

*Around the M's blogosphere, everyone has already weighed in on the Eduardo Perez for Asdrubal Cabrera trade the M's made this morning. This is exactly the kind of move I was afraid Bavasi would make. Sure, it makes the big club better right now. But, it also sacrifices the future (and you know how much the M's love those sacrifices!). Bavasi knows he could be canned this winter if the M's finish with a losing record for the third year in a row and I really didn’t want to see him make a move like this. So, I'm really torn on this one. I love it because maybe, just maybe, the M's can squeak into the playoffs - at which point anything can happen. But I hate it because I think it's a tad irresponsible. Sure, with the awesome middle-infield combo of YuBet and J-Lo, Cabrera was blocked for the time being. But, heaven forbid, what if either of them gets hurt in the near future? Who plays shortstop in their absence? Mike Morse? Willie Bloomquist? Barf! Depth isn't a bad thing. Let's just hope Bavasi doesn't any more of these up his sleeve. </rant>

 

*Anyway…I was bummed all day about that deal, but the move that really got my attention was that the Padres hired Paul DePodesta as a special assistant. This squashes my attempt at writing parody lyrics to the tune of "Where in the World is Carmen San Diego?" because I was wondering why DePo went unemployed for so long. According to this article, it sounds like he enjoyed it though...

 

For the better part of Paul DePodesta's adult life, the 7 p.m. hour meant it was five minutes from first pitch. These days, that's bathing time for his 2-year-old son and 5-month-old daughter, and DePodesta is happy to spend the time with his family in their Los Angeles home.

...He just enjoys the extended time he's spending with his family, because the hours required to run a baseball club made that so difficult in the past.

...and is happy to do some volunteer work for Habitat for Humanity in the greater Los Angeles area, doing mostly construction.

About once a week, DePodesta hammers nails, pours concrete, puts up dry wall, or "whatever else they tell me to do."

Nobody around him knows he used to run the Dodgers.

"I'm just like anybody else," DePodesta said by telephone from Los Angeles. "Just another guy wearing a baseball hat and safety goggles." 

 

But, seriously, having Kevin Towers, Sandy Alderson, Grady Fuson and Paul DePodesta in the same front office? That's just not fair!

 

*Tomorrow I'm going to Spokane for the weekend for my bachelor party. I'm bummed I had to miss the SABR convention in Seattle, but I'll be having a blast, hanging with my friends, playing some golf and watching my favorite band (Gatsby's American Dream) play a show. I'm getting married next Saturday (!) and then going on my honeymoon to Kauai. So, if I don't post too much during the next couple weeks, that's why...

 

Go Mariners!

Now that Felix has graduated, I have a new favorite pitching prospect in the M's system...

The M's 7th-round pick this year out of Fresno State, Doug Fister.

Fister was awesome (again!) in his second start of the season. Facing the Yakima Bears, the big righty went 5 innings, giving up 5 hits, 2 runs (1 earned), striking out 3 and walking 1. It doesn’t look like a dominating performance until you see his GB/FB ratio: 13/2!! Although we’re still dealing with a small sample size, Fister looks to be a groundball machine. Here is his line for the season…

 

GS	IP	H	R	ER	BB	K	HR	GB/FB	ERA
2	10	5	2	1	1	12	0	4.50	0.90

 

I hope I get to see Fister in Everett, but he might not be there much longer if he continues to just dominate like this!

Dodgers GM Ned Colletti got absolutely worked by Tampa Bay’s Andrew Friedman yesterday.

 

Which pitcher would you rather have?

A) A 32-year-old lefty (6’9”, 230 lbs.) with a 4.52 K/9, 2.57 BB/9 and a 1.30 GB/FB over the past three seasons. His salary is $1.95 million.

B) A 29-year-old righty (6’0”, 228 lbs.) with a 5.24 K/9, 2.94 BB/9 and a 0.94 GB/FB over the past three seasons. His salary is $350,000.

 

How about this one…

Which catcher would you rather have?

A) A 30-year-old currently hitting .231/.261/.398 from the right-side of the plate while making $2.25 million.

B) A 22-year-old switch hitter making close to the minimum and currently hitting .280/.372/.387, but projects for more power.

 

You’d choose Player B both times, right? Not if you’re Ned Colletti, who traded Jae Seo, Dioner Navarro AND a player to be named later to Tampa Bay for Mark Hendrickson, Toby Hall and $1 million. Big props to Friedman on this one…another very shrewd move by the young GM. Talk about buying low on Jae Seo and selling high on Hendrickson. Hey...maybe he just hates players from Washington (Hendrickson is from Mount Vernon and went to WSU, and Hall was born in Tacoma)!

 

Colletti hasn’t impressed me so far at all. Sure, acquiring Seo from the Mets in the first place was a good deal. The Milton Bradley trade is probably a coin flip at this point, dealing Edwin Jackson and Chuck Tiffany for Danys Baez and Lance Carter was a bad decision and this is even worse.