Big Papi Curse Lifted?

Earlier this week the Yankees dug up the mysterious shirt that was buried in the cement at the new Yankee stadium. It turned out to be a David Ortiz t-shirt. Big Papi, who has been slumping horribly, was given yesterday off and returned to the lineup tonight. This was his first game since the article of clothing bearing his name was dug out of Yankee stadium.

Ortiz went 2 for 5, getting his first hit in a long time and getting a critical hit in the 9th (and then was replaced with a pinch runner who then scored the go-ahead run on a Manny Ramirez homer).

Could the Papi shirt buried under Yankee stadium in an effort to hex the Yankees have actually cursed the big man instead? I don't know but since it was dug up Ortiz's slump has disappeared.

(Note: No, I don't actually believe this, but the hysteria the story seems to have generated is humorous.)

ESPN Sunday Night Baseball Crew Needs Help

ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball was covering the decisive third game of the series in what some call the greatest rivalry in professional sports, the Yankees and the Red Sox.

During a late inning pitching change, ESPN announcer Joe Morgan got on a soapbox about steroids as the change was being made. He was trying to make a point that we should recognize and salute the players who through the performance-enhancing drug years did not use steroids. It's a sad commentary when we need to reward people for not cheating. Regardless, Joe kept belaboring the point and would not give up the microphone, oblivious to the fact that the game had started back up. We missed the call on several pitches, a hit and a pinch runner. This was another example of horrible Joe Morgan announcing. I respect his opinion, but he should know when to shut up and let Miller call the plays. His co-host has a little more box-savvy, knowing not to start a story late in an inning and quickly cutting away from his anecdotes to cover the action. Take a lessen from your co-host Joe.

If you watched any Yankee games during spring training you probably hear the announcers speaking with Joe Girardi at length. Joe had a stint covering games after his year with the Marlins and knows a little bit about announcing. Whenever he was talking with Michael Kay or the other Yankee announcers, he would quickly stop talking anytime something happened on the field, allowing the announcers to report the action. If a manager can figure this out, why not Joe Morgan?

Jon Miller isn't horrible, but he's having trouble seeing the ball a bit. Lately, in two-strike situations, he emphatically starts saying "Struck him out!" on many pitches up the middle even when they end up being fouled or foul tipped. It's pretty obvious to the viewers at home what the result of the play is, but Miller is clearly jumping the gun. He needs to settle down, pause a full second, and then make the call. Repeatedly apologizing or cutting off an emphatic statement doesn't come across well.

Joe Buck, Joe Morgan, the Nascar debacle - it's been a rough weekend for nationally televised baseball coverage.

Fox Coverage Drops the Ball

I'm not a fan of Fox's baseball coverage and last night was no exception.

First of all, I will give them credit for stumbling through the two hour rain delay. There were some moments of decent sports discussion and overall it could have been worse.

The biggest fiasco was the Heidi-esque handling of the coverage. With the rain delay causing the game to go significantly over the allotted time, Fox decided to switch the game to FX and put Nascar on the main Fox channel where it was scheduled to appear.

The announcers informed those watching the game that there would be a change about twenty minutes before it happened, but said nothing immediately before the switch. In the top of the ninth, in a critical situation, Fox suddenly cut away from the game without warning, leaving fans to frantically try to locate the game on FX. The game lasted about 10 total minutes longer. It certainly wouldn't have killed them to finish out the coverage where they'd started it. The cut away was poorly handled and reflects poorly on Fox.

One thing that constantly annoys me watching baseball on Fox is Joe Buck. He doesn't seem to know the game. When a pitch is delivered, he only tells you the location and result - whether it was high or low, in or out and a strike or a ball. He rarely if ever points out what type of a pitch it was, only if someone else mentions it first. A professional baseball play by play caller should have a reasonable ability to recognize pitches and call them out to the fans. ESPN does it, the guys on YES do it, but apparently it's too much for Joe Buck .

Help Wanted

I've updated the links and blogroll section of this site (over in the righthand column) with some other Yankees blogs.

If you know of any good Yankees resources on the web, leave a comment and I'll add it to the list. If I've left out your blog, let me know and I'll add it!

I think in the future I'll start doing some reviews and commentaries on my favorite baseball sites, giving a more in-depth look at the content provided. There's a lot of great stuff out on the web that can sometimes be hard to find. Hopefully by doing posts, posting links and drawing attention to various sites will help people get connected!

Scoring Baseball Games - A Lost Art?

One fantastic way to enjoy a baseball game even more is to score the game  yourself. You can do this live at the ballpark, at home watching on TV or radio, or even following along with MLB.com's gamecast feature.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, scoring means keeping track of the play by play action during the game and recording it on paper. If done properly you should be able to recreate a game down to the last pitch.

If you watch a game live at the ballpark, your scoresheet can serve as a great souvenir of the game and lets you re-live the action. Scoring a game makes you pay close attention to the game and can help develop a deeper understanding of baseball. Having scoresheets can be a fun way to go back and recall fond memories of some great games.

With the advent of the internet and many of the play-by-play and pitch-by-pitch databases, scoring a game seems to be fading a bit, as much of the information is readily archived and available online. For me, a computer record can't compare to an actual paper scoresheet that I penciled in by hand myself.

One of the best resources and tutorials on the net for creating traditional score sheets is Christopher Swingley's tutorial and scorecard collection. Chris has a fantastic tutorial, walking you through an entire game step by step. He also has several excellent scorecards that you can download and print out.

Another nice site dedicated to traditional scorekeeping methods is Baseballscorecard.com

My current favorite site for scoring is Alex Reisner's scorekeeping page. Alex has a nice, roomy traditional scorecard that provides a bit more space than some. There is also a link to documentation and scoresheets for the project scoresheet method. Project scoresheet was an endeavor started in the 1980s to refine the method of scoring baseball games. It's major strength is that the system uses codes (numbers and letters) rather than symbols, making it easy to enter information into computer databases.

Alex's piece de resistance is his situation scoring system. The situational system is Alex's hybrid of traditional scorekeeping and project scoresheet scorekeeping. It's my current favorite method of tracking a game.

Whatever method you choose, scoring a game can really add you your enjoyment of baseball. If you're new, give it a try. If you're an old pro, keep it up!