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Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Pickoff Moves

Today's Birthdays

Artie Dede BRO b. 1895, played 1916, d. 1971-09-06

Ron Fairly LAN,CAL b. 1938, played 1958-1969, 1978, All-Star: 1973, 1977. Along with Paul Popovich, one of the two guys used to get a second helping of Maury Wills and legendary pinch-hitter Manny Mota. A solid hitter but not such a good runner, he was once asked whether he'd lost any speed with age; he replied, "There was nothing to lose."

Al Glossop BRO b. 1914, played 1943, d. 1991-07-02

Ray Mowe BRO b. 1889, played 1913, d. 1968-08-14

Mike Munoz LAN b. 1965, played 1989-1990

Jim Pastorius BRO b. 1881, played 1906-1909, d. 1941-05-10

Kelly Wunsch LAN b. 1972, played 2005. And he still isn't back into a bullpen that could probably use a mediocre reliever. Too bad he's got an 8.31 ERA in Vegas.

Plaschkean Malpractice Again

The world hasn't been subjected to the incompetent typings of Times hack journo Bill Plaschke in over a month, and yet what do we read today but another inane hatchet job on the trade that brought one of the Dodgers' two best pitchers into town. As usual, it's riddled with easily verifiable errors and readily dismissed claims: Meantime, Brad Penny is 10-2 for the Dodgers with a 2.91 ERA that's second in the rotation and started in the All-Star game. So, welcome back, Bill. We missed having your thoughtless vendettas disguised as commentary to kick around.

BTF snark here.

AL 3, NL 2

Zzzz. Actually, Trevor Hoffman's blown save was the most exciting thing I can remember at any All-Star game of recent vintage. And so, back to the regular season, already.

Comments:
Seriously, how dumb is Plaschke? Do the editors not read his drivel? I could understand why, but come on. How is it that they let the guy continue to write things that are just flat-out false?
 
Hank Blalock's blast off of Gagne was pretty exciting. The whole 2003 game was pretty good with GA getting the MVP.

Speaking of which, why is GA never mentioned as a guy who may have been juicing? Not saying he was by any means, but he kind of fits the profile. Late career power surge, regression under the new testing regime, mysterious injury, etc. You never hear his name brought up, though.
 
man, i pretty much hate the AL. except for my A's and certain other individual players who are awesome. i'm getting really sick of the league disparity.
 
I've wondered about GA as well, who also looks a bit skinnier all around than he was in, say, 2002 or 2003.

But really, we can all speculate until the proverbial cows come home. What's the point?

We know for a fact that Bonds, Sheffield, Giambi & Derrick Turnbow used steroids because they've admitted it in one way or another. And of course, the guys who were actually caught like Palmeiro. But otherwise, who knows?
 
To my knowledge, Turnbow didn't use steroids or anything prohibitted by MLB, at least at the time. The supplement he used was on the banned list by international baseball, and it showed up in a test before an internation tournament. I don't believe he was ever suspended by major or minor league baseball.
 
G.A.'s has ahad a late-career regression, not a power surge.

Brendan Donnelly was the winning pitcher in the 2003 All-Star Game, GA the MVP , Scioscia the wining manager, and A.L. President Jackie Autry the League winner.

Ron Fairly called Angels games on television in like 1980 and he was terrible - imagine Rex Hudlerand all the dumb ex-jock attitude - but instead of having a dorky side that wanted to appeal to kids, Fairly had a hypercompetitive jock side that reminded everyone he could still kick your ass because he had played the game, you lil' punk.
 
Seitz, GA picked up his injury in 2004, before testing actually began (granted, they were doing exploratory testing to see if they would test in the future, but no consequences for an individual). He was hurt much of Spring Training, still started the season, got his 4 year contract extension and then went onto the DL to figure out what the hell was wrong with him. It certainly is possible that something fishy went on there, but I think that the loss of power is entirely due to the arthritis and not really because of a loss of muscle.
 
He certainly isn't fast in the field. I tend to think his bat speed has had a similar decline.
 
Seitz: correct that Turnbow's positive test was not the product of testing pursuant to either MLB or the minor league testing program, but rather an international tournament (Olympics?). Here's a link to an article in Baseball America (written by Bill Shaikin of the LAT).

http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/news/040107turnbow.html

"Steroids" has (unfortuntely, for those including myself who like to be accurate) become the generic term for any type of performance enhancing substance, including steroid "precursors."

I actually just found another BBA article (from January 2003, about Termell Sledge), but it includes this specific info. "Turnbow acknowledged taking an over-the-counter nutritional supplement containing 19-norandrosterone, known in gyms as "19-nor[.]"

http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/news/040114sledge.html
I suspect that this substance is now banned by MLB, but wasn't at the time.
 
not much comment about this All-Star game?

Angel v Dodger .... and Vlad hit's a remarkable HR

The NL talent was the Mets and vice versa - plus they had some cool helmets.

AL, down to their last strike, pulls it out!! .... and makes it 10 games undeafeated!

i thought it was a decent game of pitching, and the throw from Wrells was pretty cool too.
 
Paul Popoovich played in the backcourt of the West Virginia Team that had Jerry West on it.
 

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