The TBB Do Spring Training 2012

Last week, we asked you lovely sports fans if any of you had superstitions or rituals associated with sports. 10 of you replied, “Yes. I’m not even sure where I begin to describe them all.” Impressively enough, only one person voted for “No. I’m normal. You’re all a pack of a-hole freaks.” Usually, the fact that we offered you an opportunity to call us a-hole freaks is enough to get you guys to mass-vote for it.

With the Superbowl being just a few short hours away, it’s time to come to the understanding that soon, we will have nothing but the New York Islanders to keep us company until April. God, the next month is looking pretty bleak, isn’t it? The good news is that pitchers and catchers report on the 19^th! The bad news is that we’ve come to the realization that we have not adequately prepared for the arrival of baseball season. We’ve been too lax in our training for spring training and beyond. That’s all gonna change!!! Well…it’s all gonna change starting tomorrow because tonight’s the Superbowl and we want to eat and drink our faces off…okay, actually it’s going to change on Tuesday because we still want to go to the bar for 10 cent wings on Monday. Yes, Tuesday. That’s it. We’ll start on Tuesday. Promise.

How do we prepare for the MLB season, you ask? We’ll tell you. We know that you’ve been chomping on the bit to find out.

1.  For starters, being on vacation during the warm weather months will require us to appear in public at some point or another wearing an outfit made of bathing suit material. In an effort not to offend the masses or get harpooned because we were mistaken for Moby Dick, we begrudgingly embrace the fitness. On some days, we do yoga:

On other days, we strength train:

2. Traveling to stadiums can at times be dangerous. We have to be able to protect ourselves from psychotic fans (not of us, but of the teams we’re observing). After a few bad experiences in Boston, Chicago, and Philly, we’ve decided that we need to be better trained in the art of self-defense. Therefore, thanks to the online videos found on MMA Candy, we’ve picked up MMA fighting in our spare time. We feel like we’re borderline professionals right now. We’re like two steps away from getting a belt of some sort. It might be the Hulk Hogan replica belt found at Toys R Us, but it totally counts for something. As you can see in these pictures, we’re obviously in the heavy weight division.

3. We have to coach our stomachs to handle eating ballpark food again. Therefore, we spend a lot of time at fast food joints and local delis…and bars…eating crap. Crap that probably screws with our whole fitness concept, but it is what it is. We’re basically working out to maintain the status quo.

4. To help pay for these trips, we collect spare change like homeless people that we later cash in at the Penny Arcade at TD Bank for dollar, dollar bills, ya’ll. This season, we’re hoping to pay for at least one night’s stay in Toronto.

5. Part of our change fund comes from our “green” habits! We bring our recyclable water bottles (not beer bottles because as you know, we’re very sober) to the local bottle depot and get a whopping 5 cents back on each container!

6. Lastly, it’s important that we purchase tickets to the games that we want. We can’t just up and go to another city and run the risk of not being able to get tickets. What’s the point otherwise? Do you think people just travel to Minneapolis or Milwaukee for absolutely no reason? Unless you want to get roofied. Then definitely, definitely go to Minneapolis and hang out at Prohibition at the W Hotel. You could end up looking and feeling like Lisa:

There’s a better picture of this situation taken in the ladies’ room of the hotel, but we felt that a bit inappropriate to post here. ANYWAY, the point we’re trying to get at here is that we consistently monitor single-game ticket sales. As you can see, the Blue Jays have announced that their tickets go on sale on February 17^th, but in the case of the Braves and Nationals, they haven’t announced their on sale dates yet. Therefore, we’ve joined their online ticket alerts for the time being. Though it’s quite possible that even after we unsubscribe to them, they’ll continue to email us. Subscribe at your own risk, fellow stadium travelers.

This week’s baseball notes:

On Thursday night, a woman was charged with stalking Brian Cashman in an attempt to extort him. Do all of you know who Brian Cashman is? For those who may be living under a rock, he’s the GM for the Yankees. He’s not a player. Or even a retired player. He’s also not attractive. He looks like a box turtle. Not even one of those cute little western turtles that splash around in your home aquatic tank. He’s creepy looking. Sure, he’s wealthy. But if you’re going to extort a Yankee for money, wouldn’t you hit up Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter, or CC Sabathia? They’re stupid rich. All in all, this just sounded like a stupidly laid plan. The A-Team would not be impressed. To top it off, his wife has filed for divorce. That’s just a sh*tty week. We’re sorry, Brian. You should drink heavily. But not at a movie theater. Apparently it’s frowned upon to drink alcohol from a travel mug in those establishments.

Brad Penny will be parting ways with the United States in favor for playing ball in Japan. He’ll be playing for the SoftBank Hawks and is expected to arrive in Japan on Wednesday. So long, Penny!  

Jose Reyes doesn’t stop being a complete a$$ hat. He received a trim on national television (because there’s nothing better to put on television these days) because of the Marlins’ rule of “no hair below the helmet line.” Here are some of the gems that came out of his mouth:

“One thing that I do, I wash my hair once a month," Reyes said. "Every time I went to shower, I put a plastic bag on my hair, and David Wright (is) always making fun of me because of that. I don't get my hair wet.” (Of course, David Wright makes fun of you…he’s HYGENIC!!! He bathes like a normal person! It’s one of his better qualities! According to Lisa, he looks like he smells nice. She doesn’t know for sure because she hasn’t been able to sniff his neck or armpit yet, but 2012 is a new year)

"It's going to be a little bit emotional because I spent three years with this hair. But at the same time, I understand this rule of my new team.” (We’re sorry, but we were unaware that you had a vagina. You really are a woman. First, you break up with your long time team on bitter terms and now you’re getting a hair cut like a typical chick. What’s next? A gym membership to build a whole new you?)

"A little bit lighter. It's going to take me a couple of days to get used to it.” (But just think of how much faster your blow dry time is going to be)

The Brewers and pitcher Shaun Marcum avoided an arbitration hearing (again, we fail to become employed by the MLB) this week by agreeing to a 1-year deal worth $7,725,000.

Justin Timberlake and Timbaland closing things out today. “It’s spring training so we’re gonna work our bodies like a carry out. Gonna do some MMA until some bitch taps out. Count my change out, baby, don’t you cut any out! Count my change out, baby, don’t you cut any out!”

Oh, wait for it…Go Giants!!!!

The Wright Stache

Before Serena came down with Yellow Fever and left us with a BS blog of baseball notes, we had asked which of Scott Boras’ unemployed would you hire. 4 of you are actually willing to pay $1 for all three of the smelly jerk offs. We understand the draw of a good bargain, but do you understand that you’d have to deal with 3 a-holes, one of them resembling an ape and another one who refuses to bathe on a regular basis? For a $1, you might as well go to the Dollar Tree and buy a Snickers bar. It’d be a better investment. 5 of you voted for Andruw Jones, which honestly flabbergasts us to no end. Exactly what do you think you’ll get out of him? Did you pick him because the Yankees signed him? We assure you that we don’t understand the Yankees on this one either. 2 intelligent beings voted for none of them because they’re old hags. No one voted for Manny. Because he smells. And we’re pretty sure he has lice. No one voted for Johnny either, but he looks like he actually showers so…

You might be wondering what in the hell we were talking about when we referenced “The Wright Stache” a few weeks ago. The Wright Stache is a website that might surpass us in terms of insanity and ridiculousness…which of course means that it brings us utter joy. Basically the entire concept of this site is to get David Wright to grow a mustache because it will guarantee a Championship for the Mets because “the mustache has mojo.” Oh, yes. That is a direct quote from the website. We kid you not. They’ve even gone so far as to create a video to inspire the mustache phenomenon. It’s literally the most magical video we’ve ever seen. Literally. We do not exaggerate. It’s more magical than all of the Harry Potter films and books combined. Yes. THAT magical.

Thanks to The Wright Stache, we felt obligated to do a little research of our own. Do the creators of The Wright Stache have something here? Do mustached lips dominate the Championship pool? We went to Google for answers. First, we looked up the list of Championship baseball teams since 1975 (because we’re lazy and didn’t feel like going all the way back to the beginning). Then…we counted mustaches/beards and compared the total to the number of mustaches/beards of the losing team.

We know what you’re thinking. “Wow, you really looked up the team photos of the World Series opponents for the last 35 years??? That must’ve taken you forever!!” It did…which is why we stopped that strategy pretty quickly. Instead, we chose team photos randomly from each decade. Unfortunately, there were times when an actual team photo wasn’t feasible (turns out that Google Images ISN’T infallible after all) and we had to improvise.

We begin in 1977 with the New York Yankees who defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers literally and in mustache count. In the team photos, the champions showed 13 mustaches while the Dodgers only had 7.

On to the 1979 Pirates who defeated the Orioles with 20 friggin’ mustaches, making them the hairiest of this bunch and earning them TBB Super Hero of the Week. The Orioles only mustered 7.

The Phillies defeated the Royals in the 1980 World Series. Phillies’ facial hair count was 15. The Royals? Just 7.

We all remember the Bill Buckner debacle in 1986, but did anyone notice that in the Mets’ team photo of that year, there were 14 hairy faces? And only 4 for the losing Red Sox? Hmmm….

The Yankees came from behind to defeat the defending champs Braves in 1996. The reason? Come from behind playing and money pitching? Negative, our friends. It was probably the fact that the Yanks had 9 furries to the Braves’ 6.

In 2004, the Red Sox not only committed a hate crime against the Yankees in the ALCS, but they also blew the Cardinals out of the water in the facial hair competition. The results? 7-2.

In the photos we found for comparison of our most recent World Series contenders, the Giants and Rangers were tied with 5 furry faces each. How did we determine the winner? Brian Wilson has a Mohawk AND a beard. Clearly that trumps just having a beard. And before you bitch that the picture we used for the Giants isn’t a legitimate team photo, we’d like to point out that we used a photo in the same format for the Rangers. We couldn’t FIND proper team photos for them, okay??

It appears as though the results are conclusive. The Wright Stache definitely seems to have a brilliant and scientifically proven theory here. Naked lips apparently do NOT win championships.

Note: Our statistics might be slightly skewed as we were forced to count hair in several blurry old photos. It is entirely possible that on some occasions, we counted an upper lip shadow as a mustache (though we ASSURE you that this was not the case with the Pirates. They legitimately had 20 mustaches).

Baseball Notes:
The A’s have agreed to a 1 year/$1.4 million contract with the cute smarty pants, Craig Breslow, avoiding arbitration.

According to Brian Cashman, if Derek Jeter doesn’t last at short stop for his entire 4-year contract (or beyond?), he’d be best suited for centerfield. Jeter’s currently 36 years old, which puts him at 40 by the end of his contract. Short stop requires a lot of range and it’s understandable to plan for a decline in ability as Jeter ages. But centerfield? The outfield position that requires the most range? Does that make sense? Well, apparently Cashman likes his “corners” (infield and outfield) “to have power,” which is why he’d choose to shift Jeter to center as opposed to right or left. However, regardless of this kind of talk, Cashman assured us that “Jeter’s our shortstop, period.”

Rays’ outfielder Rocco Baldelli has retired and accepted a position with the team as a “special assistant.” Pardon us, but that title sounds a little dirty, dirty. Sorry…we’ll return to the story at hand. Baldelli has spent 6 of his 7 major league seasons with the Rays and in his new role he’ll be involved in scouting and player development. Baldelli had been diagnosed in 2008 with having a mitochondrial disorder which causes muscle fatigue. This condition combined with a variety of injuries caused him to miss all or parts of 4 seasons. In 519 career games played with Tampa Bay and Boston, Baldelli hit .278, 60 home runs, and 262 RBI’s.

So…We Still Don’t Work for the MLB

So last we week we had a brief, yet fiery rant about the retardation of adding more wild card teams. Regardless of our ranting, kicking, and screaming, if we’re to listen to Bud Selig’s nonsense, it appears as though we’re getting additional wild card teams in 2012 whether we want it or not. We asked you if you’d embrace more wild card teams and 3 of you feel as strongly as we do, being that this idea is “literally the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.” 1 individual loves wild card teams because “they’re the bestest.” However, the truly brilliant part of this poll is that someone actually voted for, “Well okay, but only if they’re first forced to compete in the Tri-Wizard tournament for the Goblet of Fire, which will take place at Hogwarts…naturally.” Thank you for that. There are no words to convey to you how hard we laughed.

This year’s MVP’s have finally been announced, but there wasn’t anything surprising about the outcome. Joey Votto secured the NL MVP and the only thing shocking about it is that he pummeled reigning MVP, Albert Pujols by a landslide (31 votes to 1). Josh Hamilton took AL MVP, beating the second place Miguel Cabrera by 17 points.

Finally, after days, weeks, months of BS, the Mets have finally announced their new manager and no, it’s not the TBB. We must confess that we’re not really sure where we went wrong during our interview process. On Tuesday, Mets confirmed that 61 year old Terry Collins would be taking over Jerry Manuel’s former position. His previous managerial experience includes the Houston Astros (1994-1996) and the then Anaheim Angels (1997-1999) with a win-loss record of 444-434. Personally, we think that the Mets have made a big mistake choosing Collins over us. Combined, we’re 60 years old. We’re energetic and have many more years of experience under our belts, having managed several different teams from the stands, living room couches, and bar stools. We’ve even called the bull pen from our personal cell phones, selflessly using our own daytime minutes for the sake of the team. PLUS, we write a baseball blog. Granted, a baseball blog filled without a lot of malarkey, but does HE write a baseball blog? No. We think not.

We know that you probably don’t care about what we just talked about. We’re guessing that you want us to go off on this whole Derek Jeter/Yankees marital trouble situation. Fine. We’ll play a little ball with you, but we’re not going to spend a ridiculous amount of time covering it. Newsday, New York Times, Daily News, ESPN, ESPN.com, and MLB.com are covering it enough. Brian Cashman refuses to comment on what Jeter’s camp is asking for or confirm if the Yankees’ offer is really 3 years/$15 million, but he has said that they’ve offered Jeter a “fair and appropriate” deal. He’s even gone so far as to suggest to Jeter that he should test the market if he feels cheated. Jeter’s agent has called the Yankees’ negotiation tactics “baffling” (which Cashman appears to be a bit stung by). You probably expect us to snarl over the Yankees’ selfishness and insensitive handling of the situation. Sorry, but it’s not going to happen. Oh, sure. We definitely see Jeter’s side of the coin here, but we can also understand the position that the Yankees are in as well.

The Victim’s side of the story (if you can call Jeter a “victim”): Jeter’s been an important figure in the Yankees’ franchise for his entire career. He’s been a member of the 1996, 1998, 1999, 2000, and 2009 World Series teams. He was the 1996 Rookie of the Year and became team captain in 2003. He’s won 5 Gold Gloves at short stop with them (though there are plenty of people willing and able to argue against him winning them). He’s an 11-time All Star and a 4-time winner of the Silver Slugger Award. He is the all-time hits leader among short stops and the Yankees’ all-time hits leader, having passed Lou Gehrig in 2009. Most Yankees fans love him and from what we can tell, he’s highly respected and well-liked by his teammates. Perhaps even non-Yankees fans and non-Yankees players like him. However, we can’t really confirm that now can we?

The Yankees’ side of the story: They realize what Jeter’s done for the team over the span of his career. The organization may be run by wealthy and arrogant businessmen, but they’re not foolish. However, Derek Jeter is 36 years old. He’s currently playing an infield position that requires a player to cover a good chunk of ground and as you get older, it becomes more difficult to do so. Hey, we’re not knocking the over 30 crowd here. We’re not quite at 36 yet and even we notice a difference in staying in shape. We can no longer eat a carton of ice cream without seeing it creep into our butts. It sucks. We miss our high school physiques. Plus, while he’s a decent fielder, it’s his offense that makes Jeter special. 2010 was NOT a good year at the plate for him. What if that’s a sign of things to come? Sure, it could just be an off year. Lots of players have them and then rebound the following year just fine. But still…what if it’s not? We’re not 100% confident that Jeter can switch positions. Switching positions to begin with is a difficult transition (make fun of Alex Rodriguez’s move from short to third all you want, but trust us. That wasn’t easy and the job’s he currently doing at third should be commended regardless of how you feel about him personally), but some people don’t have the athletic prowess to do it successfully. So if Jeter can’t switch positions and he’s no longer hitting well, are the Yankees really expected to keep Jeter for more than 3 years and pay him large sums of money simply out of loyalty?

We’re not saying that either side is more right or more wrong. We’re just saying that both sides have a point. We hear rumors here and there that the Red Sox and Mets might make an offer just to make the Yankees squirm, but the Mets just recently committed themselves whole-heartedly to Jose Reyes and we personally feel that Red Sox fans would rather slit their own wrists than see Derek Jeter in a Red Sox uniform.

When all is said and done, the fact remains is that both camps should’ve kept these dealings private. Jeter is a popular player and whether anyone likes it or not, he’s currently the face of the franchise. He’s high-profile, high-paid, and famously “Yankee.” His pending free agent status was news well before the season ended. The public back and forth crap does nothing for either side’s situation and it’s now almost at the point of embarrassing. This morning, the back page of a local newspaper didn’t address the Mets’ new manager, the spiraling New York Giants, or the endless amount of luck the Jets seem to be in possession of. It screamed Derek Jeter. Going forward, both parties should shut up and just let us know when a decision’s been made. That’s all anyone really cares about anyway.

Movement Around the League:
According to reports, Victor Martinez is ditching the Red Sox for the Tigers. If this is true, this leaves a pretty big gap behind the plate for the Sox to fill and Jason Varitek is most definitely not their answer.

Several players have been offered arbitration this week, including the Rangers’ Cliff Lee and Frankie Francisco, Red Sox’s Mike Lowell, White Sox’s Paul Konerko and JJ Putz, Phillies’ Jayson Werth, Twins’ Carl Pavano, Jesse Crain, and Orlando Hudson, and the Yankees’ Javier Vazquez. We’ll rattle off a few names that did NOT get arbitration (though this doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re leaving the organization): Jason Varitek, Derek Jeter, Andy Pettitte, Hideki Matsui, Bengie Molina, and Vlad Guerrero.

Finally, we’d like to wish a happy birthday to The Favorite’s brother and Brownie Maker.

Have a Gobble, Gobble Thursday filled with good food, friends and family, and great football!

Three Cheers for Greedy Corporate Executives

We’re not even going to acknowledge last week’s poll because it’s become pretty clear to us that you’re all a pack of cheaters. Since the poll was “who is staging a comeback,” regarding the holes the Yankees and Phillies had dug themselves into during the Championship Series, the outcome was going to be determined rather quickly. Well ahead of today’s blog posting. No one, repeat NO ONE, voted before Game 6 of either series was played. Conveniently, everyone voted the day after both teams were eliminated from playoff contention. You do understand that these are opinion polls, right? You get nothing for guessing right. You baffle us. How do you sleep at night? Since you’re so gung-ho about being rule breakers, this week’s poll is going to be something you CAN’T cheat on. Enjoy it.
Serena made a bet with The Favorite’s brother that the Giants would win the World Series this year. So far, the Bay Area Boys are doing right by her and making The Favorite’s brother feel like a NTAC…because he IS a NTAC for choosing the Rangers. This is nothing personal. It’s business.

The series moves to Arlington for the next 3 games. The schedule for this weekend is as follows:

Game 3 – Saturday at 6:30 pm
Jonathan Sanchez vs. Colby Lewis

Game 4 – Sunday at 8:00 pm
Madison Baumgarner vs. Tommy Hunter

Sadly, the ratings for this year’s World Series have been pretty bleak. The Giants 11-7 win over the Rangers on Wednesday that featured a Tim Lincecum/Cliff Lee billing had an 8.9 rating and 15 share, which is down 25% from last year’s Yankees/Phillies World Series opener. This could be chocked up to the fact that there are a lot of New York transplants all over the country who may have had a vested interest in that particular series. However, this number is also down 3% from the Rays-Phillies’ Game 1 in 2008, a series that had scored a record low-rating. FOX stated that Thursday’s Game 2 peaked at 10.4/16 at about 9:30 pm before dropping steadily following a 6-run 5th inning, which is somewhat understandable. Personally, when the Yankees were losing Game 6 by 6 runs, we stopped watching too and we actually gave a crap about the outcome of that game.

Here’s the deal. The Giants have a great young pitching staff that deserves to be watched by the world. Cliff Lee is an amazing pitcher who deserves to be in this type of atmosphere. We all know Josh Hamilton’s story and it’s fantastic that he has this opportunity. All that being said, FOX has lost 3 million viewers in the New York area because they’re Cablevision customers and unable to watch the World Series. Granted, 3 million people do not equal the country’s population, but it’s a staggering number nevertheless. With two “non-local” teams in the World Series, people are not going to take the time to travel to the nearest sports bar to watch these games. They’re going to reserve those trips for football Sunday in order to watch the Jets and Giants. That lost consumer base might not equal the 25% decrease in ratings from last year’s Game 1, but it certainly would’ve contributed to a higher rating than the 2008 Game 1. So well done, greedy network executives. Here’s to you! Way to lose all that money and steal the limelight from players who deserve it. Don’t worry. No one thinks you’re selfish or anything.

Despite the low ratings of the World Series, this past week still managed to produce a few interesting baseball notes. Brian Cashman, GM for the Yankees, announced on Monday that pitching coach, Dave Eiland, has been fired for reasons that Cashman refuses to disclose. This should be good. Apparently, AJ Burnett has an umbilical cord attached to Eiland, so we can’t wait to see AJ’s performance come 2011. Just when you think it couldn’t get worse, AJ loses his lifeline. FAN-friggin’-tastic. Furthermore, “reasons he can’t disclose?” What’s that about? Is Eiland KGB? MI6? Bank robber?

The head of the Players’ Union says that his members are open to adding more Wild Card teams for the 2012 season and possibly extending the Division Series to a best-of-seven series. Exactly how full of their own BS is the MLB? Adding more Wild Card teams gets you what? The whole excitement of the Wild Card race is that only one team from each league gets to be the Wild Card. OF COURSE, they’re willing to consider this. It’s just another way to earn money via an additional round of playoffs. Money is also clearly the only motive for extending the Division Series. The MLB doesn’t need another dime in its coffer. It’s revolting. Remove head from ass, please.

In case anyone was worried, Joe Girardi signed a 3-year contract with the Yankees worth $9 million with bonuses that could total $500,000/year based on the team’s performance. So $9 million isn’t enough for an individual hired by a professional baseball team? We need bonuses? It’s not cool enough to be paid a crap-ton of money to work for a baseball team? Incentives are needed? Meanwhile, we can’t even get a $1.00 raise. Awesome. No. The TBB isn’t bitter. We totally love hearing numbers associated with the word “million” tossed around like they’re Frisbees.

3 weeks after Omar Minaya got the boot, the Mets have decided to hire Sammy Alderson as the new GM. Contract details are still pending, but we’re pretty confident that it’s a good chunk of change. Probably more than the $1.00/hour extra that we’re asking for this year. Alderson is best known for an A’s team that didn’t have Zrad Biegler and actually won shit over the course of 15 seasons: 4 Division Titles, 3 Pennants, and 1 World Series from 1983-1997.

Carly Simon understood our frame of mind when she serenaded us with, “but you took away the channels we love and one of them was FOX 5. We had some dreams, they were clouds in our beer. Clouds in our beer and…you’re so vain. You probably think this song is about you. You’re so vain. I’ll bet you think this song is about you. Don’t you? Don’t you? Don’t you? Well, it is!”

Have a delicious, drunk, and safe Halloween, you Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown