Talkin' Baseball: Part Deux

The trade deadline proved to be pretty interesting but not for the reason most people thought. The biggest name of all, Roy Halladay, ended up going nowhere. It's not a total surprise (the Jays were asking a Kings ransom for him, and rightly so), but unless the Jays really think they can contend next year his trade value just went way down.

Mark DeRosa and Matt Holiday to St. Louis - Damn! I'm still sticking with the Cubs having a ridiculous second half and winning the division. I don't know how, but they're just going to do it. Watch!

Out of nowhere, Jake Peavy (who is on the DL) to the White Sox. Hmmm. Well, assuming he's fine for September it will be an interesting story line to follow.



Cliff Lee to the Phillies. Wow. Great move for Philadelphia, plus they still have J.A. Happ in their rotation who threw a nine inning shut out in his last start. Oh, and Pedro Martinez fanned 11 batters in his last minor league rehab start. I know it's the minor leagues, but pedro might yet prove to be an effective starter for Philadelphia or a nice long relief option (or, imagine him as a set up man? Interesting.). The Phillies are going to the World Series.



Victor Martinez to the Red Sox for Justin Masterson and prospects. The Sox need the bat and Martinez is already making the lineup better. Still, I'm nervous here - it feels like we should have let Buchholz go and stick with Masterson. Justin Masterson in our starting rotation right now would be the best option. Beyond Beckett and Lester, it's ugly. John Smoltz is nowhere near what we thought we would be getting. Brad Penny has won ONE game in his last eight starts. Clay Buchholz looks like a deer in headlights on the mound (Note to Theo Epstein: When you have a guy who looks like a pixie in your rotation, TRADE HIM!!). Oh, how I hope my own words come back to bite me one day as I watch Clay Buchholz dominate on the mound.



Speaking of the Red Sox, I hear they're playing a few ball games in New York City this weekend. Exciting! Well, exciting if I was a Yankee fan. Sadly, I see this being the weekend when the Red Sox 2009 season more or less comes to an end (actually, you could probably argue it ended against the Rays over the past two nights). It's going to be a bloodbath. Smoltz is going to be lucky to make it three innings. Buchholz might actually cry on national TV this Saturday. Beckett and Lester will pitch well, but the offense will flutter on those nights. All of this leads to the reversal of my previous AL east division results. No longer can I play the homer and look the other way. The division belongs to Yankees. The Sox MIGHT win the wild card. MIGHT. It all comes down to pitching and we all of a sudden don't have it. Last night the Red Sox signed Paul Byrd. PAUL BYRD. Not a good sign.





World Series prediction: Phillies vs. Yankees. This will actually be a hell of a World Series and honestly I'm not sure who would win. Easily 6 or 7 games.


Do I still have hope for the Sox? Yes. Believe me, I'm not rooting against my own team. I'm simply trying to view it realistically. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go light myself on fire.


(Side note: If I was a hard core Indians fan, my soul would be crying and in the fetal position. It must be terrible to watch Lee and Martinez go. I don't wish that feeling on anyone.)

Talkin' Baseball

Ohh, folks! I think we're going to have ourselves a very exciting second half of major league baseball in 2009. Most of the divisions throughout the league are tight races so far and there are some big names looming out there before the trade deadline at the end of July. There's a little bit of everything happening this year. This is a two part series. I'll follow up with a revised post after the trade deadline since that will most likely alter some of the races. Now, I'm not going to throw statistics at you like Al Gore or Barack Obama. For that you can go to baseball-reference.com for every stat you could possibly desire. No, I'm coming at this like George "Dubbya" Bush - from the gut! With that, here's how I see things shaking out in the second half.

National League West

Let's start with the easy division, shall we? It's the Dodgers all the way. Sure, they could use a little bullpen help but overall their pitching is solid. And yeah, Chad Billingsly hasn't made a quality start in a while but he'll right his own ship. Their offense is certainly one of the bests in the league and now they have Manny back from his Club PED vacation all rested and ready to mash his team into the post season. The Giants and Rockies will make a push but a wild card victory for them is more realistic.

National League Central

What a division. Right now St. Louis has a 2 game lead over the Cubs and a 3 game lead over the Brewers and Astros. Oh, and the Reds are only 5 1/2 games out. There's a lot to like about the Cardinals - from their pitching to having the best player in the game in Albert Pujols. That's why I'm picking the Cubs to win the division! I have to think teams are going to flat out stop pitching to Pujols from here on out. They have to. Make Colby Ramsus or Ryan Ludwick beat you. Meanwhile in Chicago, Lou Piniella is going to become Milton Bradley's personal hitting coach. I'm tellin' ya, things are about to turn around for them. Cubs win! Cubs win! But they'll get swept in the first round of the playoffs.

National League East

Gotta go with the Champs on this one. The Phillies decimated the Cubs on national television last night (my pick for the NL Central already looks HORRIBLE!) to continue their hot streak. That's 9 wins in a row. Meanwhile, the Mets are just too banged up at this point. Really, I don't like that Mets team. They just don't seem to gell and the Oliver Perez signing has been a disaster. If the Phillies make a deal for Roy Halladay (and they should) they'll cruise right back to the World Series.

American League West

The Rangers are looking mighty good these days. What a Gnarly lineup (Cruz, Hamilton, Young...) and a much improved pitching staff with C.J. Wilson doing a great job in the closer role. Over in Anaheim, meanwhile, the Angels are pretty beat up. Vlad and Torri Hunter are both on the DL and they have some suspect pitching. Having said that, they're still finding ways to win and have a 2 1/2 game lead over the Rangers currently. They still own the Yankees and tend to beat up on the Red Sox in the regular season (October's a different story!). They really need Hunter back in that lineup though (as does my fantasy team). This is a tough one, but I'm going with the Rangers to mash their way into the playoffs with pitching just good enough to keep them in ball games.

American League Central

White Sox. They're about to get Carlos Quentin back and I see them moving into first place within the next two weeks. The Tigers have been a big surprise so far but let's face it, the city of Detroit is having a very bad year. When was the last time you heard good news coming out of Detroit? Don't exptect it with the Tigers either.

American League East

Ok, here we go. The meat grinder division! There's my beloved Boston Red Sox and the of course, the New York Yankees. They're in your face, overplayed in the media, the rivalry isn't as interesting anymore, and they're a bunch of big, fat rich kids with fan bases that constantly complain about how shitty they're doing even though most other teams would kill for their resources. I love it! Mix in the reigning AL Champ Tampa Bay Rays we've got a great second half coming here. Even before the season began I just couldn't see the Rays pulling it out again. It's completely possible, but they're just not going to do it. This is going to be old school, coming down between the big boys who are currently all even. Boston's bats have been struggling a bit as of late but this is no time to panic. They're ganna hit and we know they can pitch. The Yankees, as we all know, can hit the shit out of the ball and their pitching staff is starting to come together. Uh oh. This is going to make for some great September baseball down the stretch...and the winner is.......the Boston Red Sox! Who win the division by 2 games. Yeah, I know, I'm a homer. I thought about predicting the Yanks to win the division but my fingers literally couldn't type it.


AL WILD CARD: New York Yankees
NL WILD CARD: St. Louis Cardinals


There you have it. I can't wait to see how many of these I get completely wrong. Actually, scratch that - I can't wait to see how many I get right. Ok, baseball fans - until next time - enjoy the rest of the season.

The Greatest Generation...of Toys

You know how sometimes you just go on a kick where you listen to a certain singer or group for a few weeks or a month? Well the entire planet is currently doing that since the death of Michael Jackson. Every time I've left my apartment over the past four days someone has without fail driven by blasting a Michael song. I count myself as one of them, going on YouTube and watching most of his old videos and some 'Jackson Five' performances. I loved his music so much my parents got me this kick ass little record player to your right for my birthday one year (Sadly I sold it at a street yard sale in 1994. Hey, I was saving up for Nintendo games.). Anyway, this throwback to the 80's and early 90's has me in nostalgia mode, big time.

With Michael Jackson providing a big part of my childhood's soundtrack I started thinking about what else kept me entertained as a kid. My toys of course! And you know what? My generation absolutely had the best toys growing up. This is a conversation I have had many times with my friends, all of whom fall between 26 and 30 years old. We came of age just as the digital age was about to explode, giving us a great combination of new technologies in entertainment and old school style toys (i.e. action figures, matchbox cars, etc.). Let's break down some of my personal favorites. Sorry, ladies, this is mostly a boy friendly list of toys.

ACTION FIGURES

Oh so many favorites. The quality cartoons we had led to kids being able to have epic battles along side "He-Man," bust ghosts with Dr. Venkman and company, party with the "Ninja Turtles" and even fight ruthless terrorist organizations on the side of "G.I. Joe." Special mention goes to "M.A.S.K." (Mobile Armored Strike Kommand...to the layperson!). As a kid, the idea of putting on a cool mask which gives you special powers was the coolest thing ever. Not as prominent as the above mentioned figures but never forgotten!

LIVE ACTION

Playing with action figures is one thing, but being able to run around your neighborhood pretending to BE a Ghostbuster, complete with Proton Pack, PKE Meter, and trap? Sign me up! I was way to excited on the first day I got this. Actually, it was a pretty disastrous first day of play. I hopped on my bike with my proton pack on my back (I sound like the Bobby Brown song, "On Our Own" from "GB2"!) and started riding down my street to meet up with some friends. As I was riding, the PKE Meter felt like it was going to fall off. Like an idiot, I tried to secure it with one hand while steering at a pretty good clip with my other hand. Sure enough I lost control of my bike and did a header over the handlebars. Somehow I was OK but had some nasty scrapes on my chin. After that my Mom decided it was best if I stayed indoors for the rest of the day which I protested at the time. Probably a good call on her part!

THE GAME CHANGER

I love the idea that my generation will be one of the first to be playing video games when we're in our 70's. It's all thanks to Nintendo. Birthday parties, snow days, hanging out with friends after school...no matter what we were doing Nintendo was typically squeezed in at some point. Kids would save up ever cent they could manage to buy new games. The way they marketed Nintendo to us was brilliant too. Even Fred Savage in the commercial disguised as a movie, The Wizard, pounded us over the head with all the latest Nintendo gadgets we HAD to own. The biggest piece of crap that movie tried to sell us was the "Power Glove." Check out this clip from The Wizard. As a kid, how could you NOT want to buy this thing? Only problem was it sucked! And I mean big time. You couldn't control anything with it. I owned it for about three days before it was promptly returned. I think it was really one of the only failures Nintendo had (in my eyes anyway).


Ah, nostalgia! Thanks for taking a trip down memory lane with me. During these crazy times of economic turbulence, sky high unemployment, wars, climate change, and doping baseball stars it's nice to go back and remember a simpler time when life revolved around riding bikes with your friends and playing with the best toys any generation of kids could ask for!

The Revolution will be "Tweeted"

The events unfolding in the aftermath of the Iranian election are amazing. Sadly, the Ayatollah is cracking down on the mostly peaceful demonstrators and using brutal and deadly methods to silence them. It's very hard to say whether or not what is happening in Iran right now is a revolution. The Ayatollah is clearly very rattled and using an iron fist to quash this dissent and preserve the ruling Theocracy. What's really interesting, however, is that the greatest threat to the Ayatollah and Akmadinajad's power right now is not Mousavi, the mainstream media, or even the millions of people taking to the streets and rooftops wearing green...but social networking sites. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and MySpace are proving to be game changers in regards to how political dissent can occur.

Meanwhile, back in the good old U.S. of A., one of the more puzzling criticisms of president Obama in terms of his handling of the situation in Iran is his "lack" of support for the Iranian people. One of the most vocal critics of the president on this subject has been from the Senator formerly known as John "The Maverick" McCain. First of all, I'm not so sure the people of Iran want the United States interfering in their politics at all (You may remember we tried that once before and it didn't turn out so well). Second, the president's statements thus far have been spot on and very appropriate with the current information we currently have coming out of Iran:

"What you're seeing in Iran are hundreds of thousands of people who believe their voices were not heard and who are peacefully protesting and seeking justice. And the world is watching. And we stand behind those who are seeking justice in a peaceful way. Already we've seen violence out there. I've said this throughout the week, I want to repeat it, that we stand with those who would look to peaceful resolution of conflict and we believe that the voices of people have to be heard, that that's a universal value that the American people stand for and this administration stands for. And I'm very concerned, based on some of the tenor and tone of the statements that have been made, that the government of Iran recognize that the world is watching. And how they approach and deal with people who are -- through peaceful means -- trying to be heard will I think send a pretty clear signal to the international community about what Iran is and is not.

But the last point I want to make on this -- this is not an issue of the United States or the West versus Iran; this is an issue of the Iranian people. The fact that they are on the streets, under pretty severe duress, at great risk to themselves, is a sign that there's something in that society that wants to open up. And, you know, we respect Iran's sovereignty and we respect the fact that ultimately the Iranian people have to make these decisions.

But I hope that the world understands that this is not something that has to do with the outside world; this has to do with what's happening in Iran. And I think ultimately the Iranian people will obtain justice." - President Barack Obama

Of course as things develop and new information comes to light over the coming days and weeks I would bet that the president, along with the international community, will continue to form a response and act accordingly if action over words become necessary. But for now, this is turning out to be a PR battle between the people and the establishment. As long as the Ayatollah keeps savagely beating down the voice of the people and those horrific images and videos keep being uploaded for the world to see, the more the Theocracy loses that battle. Imagine that? A government taken down by Twitter?

As someone who uses all of these social networking sites to post status updates about the weather, where I'm going to dinner, or how the Red Sox are pissing me off on a given night, I feel very lucky right now. For now, let's hope that the violence in Iran calms down soon and that a better future is in store for all of those people who have risked and given their lives for what they believe in.

Blog Now!

Hello everyone! Thanks for checking out my blog, "Get Outta My Facebook." Yes, I know, another person with a blog. I will admit right off the bat that it is mostly for me, the blogger! Mainly, I'm looking forward to putting down my thoughts online in a public forum other than a Facebook status update or a "Tweet."

So what am I going to be talking about? Well, a little of everything. Sports, movies, current events, politics...you name it I'll probably brush on it at some point. I hope to start some interesting conversations on a wide variety of topics. But really, who knows? I'm approaching this as a work in progress and perhaps after a while I will narrow the scope of the blog.

My aim is to post once or twice a week so keep a look out and comments are welcome. Here goes nothin'....thanks for taking a look!