Tag: MLB

I Met Pete Rose AKA The Hit King AKA the Greatest Attraction in Las Vegas

By on • ( Leave a comment )

I know we’ve all heard the jokes about how devalued Pete Rose’s autograph has become over the years because he legit signs anything and everything all day long in Las Vegas, but that didn’t change the fact that I desperately wanted to meet Charlie Hustle. I’m not looking to sell the goddamn thing, I’m looking for prime memorabilia for The 300s Podcast studio.

They literally have Pete sitting in a glass box like a wax statue in the MGM Grand while staff members stand outside the store to try and reel people in. It’s basically  a gigantic memorabilia store that has everything from Pete Rose bats to autographed JFK memorial collages. Then the girl working the cash register sells you a bat or a pic or a ball for Pete to sign and they even let you take a picture with the man himself for a small fee. (Shoutout to Giorgio for ponying up for that.)

You go in and meet the man, the myth, the legend and he’s literally sitting there watching March Madness on a small TV and I start to become a little concerned this dude is not even going to glance at us. His employees must deal with that sense of dread a lot because the girl taking the pics literally says to us “Don’t worry Pete will look up for a pic when he’s done.” Umm thats good I guess?

I ask the baseball legend to sign it to The 300s and he says “…what is that?” I tell him and he signs the pic and I can’t help but wonder how many horrendous things he’s signed under false pretenses. Giorgio insists he’s heard of Pete signing photos that says he killed JFK. But once we took the pic he was actually a pretty good shit, very laid back dude who joked around with us for a couple of minutes. My one regret is not telling him how much I respect him for nearly killing that catcher for a goddamn exhibition game in the 1970 All-Star game. His name is Charlie Hustle so if you’re not prepared for the train, get off the tracks.

He even signed it “Hit King 4256.” What a legend.

 

Red Sox Going With Closer by Committee to Start the Season

By on • ( Leave a comment )

WEEI – Matt Barnes. Ryan Brasier. Heath Hembree. Brandon Workman. Brian Johnson, Colten Brewer. Hector Velazquez. Tyler Thornburg.

Thornburg is the highest-paid member of the group at $1.7 million despite not proving to be an effective big leaguer since 2016. Two guys the mix to close games — Barnes and Brasier — have a combined two career saves to their credit. Hembree has never been relied on as a consistent late-inning guy. Workman has never seen a full season in the majors. Johnson and Velazquez are more perceived as long men/spot starters than high-leverage options. And Brewer’s major league debut last season with San Diego resulted in 11 appearances in which he gave up 10 runs on 15 hits and seven walks.

And you know what? Alex Cora genuinely remains really optimistic about what he has to work with.

Closer. By. Committee. The three most feared words in all of baseball. Seriously, it’s NEVER a good idea and I am still scarred by the mere mention of it after the disaster that was the 2003 Red Sox. Byung-Hyun Kim, anyone? Kim, Brandon Lyon, Chad Fox, Mike Timlin, Tim Wakefield, Casey Fossum, Alan Embree, Jason Shiell (who?), Bronson Arroyo, and Robert Person all had saves for the Boston Red Sox in 2003. Thats TEN dudes that got the ball in the 9th inning. There’s a reason they went out and paid boatloads of money for Keith Foulke that offseason and then actually won the World Series the following season.

Lets just take a look at the Red Sox recent championship history as it relates to the closer position.

  • In 2018, there were four guys that recorded a save, with Craig Kimbrel racking up 42/46.
  • In 2013, there were three guys that recorded a save, with Koji Uehara racking up 21/33.
  • In 2007, there were five guys that recorded a save, with Jonathan Papelbon racking up 37/45.
  • In 2004, there were four guys that recorded a save, with Keith Foulke racking up 32/36.

Have I made my point clear enough?

Don’t get it twisted, I am not the guy campaigning to give Kimbrel and his wildly inconsistent performances $100M, but I do prefer to give the job to one guy until he proves he cannot handle the job. None of this closer by committee junk that 100,000% will fail spectacularly.

The manager added, “One thing we found out towards the end, that although the people outside our world think we’re short on pitching, we’re not, and we’re going to be fine.”

I understand that there isn’t a young stud closer waiting the wings. There isn’t a Papelbon pushing Foulke out the door on this roster, but what worries me about the Sox is how they went about this. And I knew they would the second they won the World Series too. All summer we railed against the team for not making any big trades to shore up the bullpen and how it would be the end of them. Naturally they fell ass backwards into Ryan Brasier and Joe Kelly turned into 2003 Eric Gagne for a month and the Sox cruised to another title. Now Dave Dombrowski is pointing to what the team did last year and their philosophy on the position and the results they got. Except the only problem is that shit ain’t normal. Joe Kelly will never pitch that well for that long again. Ryan Brasier could be an absolute diamond in the rough, but he could also revert to the guy that was pitching in Japan before the Sox signed him last year.

So to not only double down on that devil may care attitude with the bullpen, but then to also make no moves while guys like Kelly and (probably) Kimbrel walked is not ideal.

But hey did you hear that Tyler Thornburg is close to returning from injury for the third consecutive year??

Oh man, I hope this Durbin Feltman kid really does fly through the minor leagues this year and is ready for prime time because this could get ugly quick. Hopefully he’s more Papelbon than Craig Hansen though.

It’s not that I’m down on all of the individual relievers themselves because they’ve all proved they can be more than effective…in certain roles. If we are looking to go the 2003 route where the Sox had 10 guys vying for saves, then I think this team is in big trouble.

Red Sox Are Nearing Extension With Chris Sale

By on • ( 1 Comment )

I love this move for the Red Sox. Granted Chris Sale has had his injury concerns the past two seasons, he has still been hands down the best pitcher on the roster and a Cy Young front runner the past two seasons. David Price turned things around last year and was excellent in the ALCS and World Series, but I would still feel a whole lot more comfortable with a savage like Chris Sale as my ace on the mound. 5 years $150 Million is a bargain at this point too, which speaks to Sale preferring comfort over maximizing every last dollar, which is even more impressive having been on team friendly deals his whole career. Sale hasn’t been shy about telling people how much he loves playing in Boston so this deal makes a ton of sense for both sides. Assuming he stays healthy its a steal for the Sox, but if he does get hurt a 5 year contract won’t totally sink the team like an 8 or 10 year deal would.

Just 8 days shy of his 30th birthday too so the Red Sox can stick to their “we don’t sign pitchers over 30” shtick too if they want, which as we all know lost them Jon Lester. Win win for everyone!

I do think this brings us one step closer to the end of the Mookie Betts era in Boston though. The timing is just too perfect. Maybe the Sox saw the recent deals signed by Bryce Harper and Mike Trout, made one last pitch to Mookie, got rejected and turned to the next guy in line due to get paid; Chris Sale. If you believe the reports the Sox have tried to negotiate long term deals with Betts in the past including an 8 year $200 Million offer last year that he turned down. Now with Trout signing a 12 year $430 Million extension just the other day you would think thats what Mookie will be looking for, assuming he keeps up his MVP-level performance over the next two seasons.

I would think the Red Sox could realistically have three $30 Million players on their roster. David Price is one (albeit the first year of Mookie’s new deal would be the last year of Price’s contract), this new contract would make Chris Sale two, and then the Sox would likely need to pick between Mookie and Xander Bogaerts. I just don’t see this team paying Xander $200+ Million and then Mookie $400+ Million.

So the Sox can go one of two ways: double down on the next two years and maximize your time with Mookie, Xander, Chris Sale, David Price, JD Martinez and co. or privately admit that you have no intentions of paying Mookie half a billion dollars in the near future and sell high for a boatload of prospects. This is the Boston Red Sox though so I can’t see them trading away a homegrown MVP player in his prime because they’re worried about footing the bill. And its not my checkbook so I’ll be fine if they extend him tomorrow, but I would probably be wary of signing a 5’9″ 180 lbs guy with two 30 HR seasons under his belt to a $400+ Million contract. He’d still only be 28 when he hits free agency in two years, but a 12 year deal puts him into his Age 40 season and I don’t want any part of the back-9 on that deal for any player.

I think we all know which direction Dave “trade every prospect who ever sniffed a Top 100 list” Dombrowski is going to lean though. We’re riding this baby into the ground so hopefully the Sox can reel off another World Series or two before Dealer Dave rides off into the sunset.

 

A New Way to Gamble On Sports

By on • ( Leave a comment )

March Madness is here, which means even people who don’t follow college hoops, like at all, have filled out their brackets and are watching the scores roll in. Based on the excitement and relative ease of filling out one of these brackets, I’ve developed a whole new way to gamble on professional sports. Essentially, brackets for the MLB, NFL, NBA and NHL and the field is the entire league.

Image result for mlb playoff bracket

I tested this out on a small scale with some friends last year, and with a little tinkering on the MLB bracket, I think I’ve found a pretty fun and unique thing here. One of the reasons that fantasy baseball and basketball aren’t as popular as football is because there are just too many games to pay attention to. With the individual sport bracket, you place your picks at the beginning of the year, and that’s it. Just like March Madness, you have a field of teams to choose from (in this case, the whole league), and you pick winners at each step of the way. Here’s a more detailed description of how baseball works:

There are 6 total rounds, with the first two rounds checkpoints in the regular season and the last four being each round of the playoffs. The first checkpoint will be May 15th (around the 1/4 season mark). The second is the All Star Break. You get 10 points per pick in the regular season rounds (1 and 2), 10 points for picking correct playoff teams and a bonus 10 points for getting seeds right (round 3). This way, if you guess a team that makes the playoffs but you don’t get the seed right, you still get awarded something. Round 4 includes the wild card game (30 points per correct WC winner) and the teams that make the LCS (40 points). I’ve scored it this way because you have a very slim chance of guessing the team that wins the actual Wild Card game, but ultimately an LCS berth is more important. Correct LCS winners get 100 points, and correct champion picks get 200 each. First tiebreaker is correct game count, second is total runs in the series clinching game.

Football works much the same way, but with no regular season checkpoints and more of an emphasis on division winners and seeding. The scoring is slightly different just because baseball playoffs aren’t as straightforward as the other leagues. Basketball and hockey start with the All-Star Break, and also assign bonus points for seeding and division winners. All brackets in any league get submitted before the season starts, again, just like with March Madness.

The PawSox Just Changed the Game Forever With This A-Rod J Lo Promo

By on • ( Leave a comment )

The Pawtucket Red Sox, ever in favor of love, will celebrate the engagement of Alex Rodriguez and Jennifer Lopez with a Red Sox-themed party Friday, April 12 at McCoy Stadium, to inaugurate the club’s Legendary Fridays series this year.

For those who recall the events of Saturday afternoon, July 24, 2004, which may have been the most important and most pivotal regular season game in the long and storied history of the Boston Red Sox

The PawSox just changed the game with this promo! As much as I used to hate A-Rod with the passion of a thousand suns, I kinda like him now. I think it’s a direct correlation to when Yankees fans turned on him at the end. He became a flawed human who just wanted to be liked that I think we can all relate to. It just didn’t feel right hating a guy that Yankees fans hated. Plus he is a true A+ talent in the broadcast booth and he charmed my socks off when he appeared at the HubSpot convention last year.

With that being said, times were different in 2004. The Red Sox were still the most popular team in town despite the Pats having won 2 of the past 3 Super Bowls. They were still the team everyone lived and died by whether it was April or October. So everything was magnified by 1,000%.

The Sox had just lost an absolute heartbreaker of an ALCS Game 7 that I will take to my grave. And to top it all off the Yankees had gotten even better. A-Rod was the new despised enemy after a failed arranged marriage was nixed by the MLBPA the winter before. So naturally the Yanks swooped in like the snakes they are and worked out a trade for the slugger. (If you’ve never watched the 30 for 30 short on what if the A-Rod Red Sox trade had gone through that is appointment viewing) A-Rod was a perennial MVP candidate, but he was also a loudmouth, whiny pretty boy who’d never won a damn thing. So when he started talking shit to 135 lbs Bronson Arroyo after getting beaned I think we had all had enough. I still vividly remember standing in my parents living room and shouting FIGHT once Varitek got in A-Rod’s face and served him a piece of catcher’s mitt pie.

And this wasn’t just some heat of the moment thing. There was genuine animosity between the two sides…or at least from Varitek. Seriously Varitek still hates the fucking guy and made A-Rod legitimately uncomfortable on the World Series broadcast last season.

So for the PawSox to honor this legendary moment in Red Sox history is an incredible promotion. Just look at some of what they have going on!

  • Fans wearing Bronson Arroyo or Jason Varitek jerseys will be admitted free to Pawtucket’s April 12th game against the New York Mets’ Syracuse affiliate.
  • Fans by the name of Jennifer will also be admitted for free (Yes… All “Jenny’s from the block” showing valid RI identification will be granted free admission at the PawSox ticket office).
  • Former Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow, who is expected to be playing with the Syracuse Mets, will walk up to Mariah Carey’s greatest hits for the duration of his series at McCoy Stadium as a salute to one of J.Lo’s greatest rivals.
  • Long-time Red Sox fan and Cambridge, MA native Ben Affleck has been cordially invited to throw out the game’s Ceremonial First Pitch-for obvious reasons.

I will have my Bronson Arroyo t-shirt jersey ready. to. go. for this game. T-shirt jerseys count, right?

The 300s Podcast: Celtics Rise Like a Phoenix on the West Coast, Red Sox Opening Day Nears, and Patriots Attack the Offseason

By on • ( Leave a comment )

The 300s boys are back in the podcast studio discussing everything from the manic Celtics to the Red Sox inching closer to Opening Day, some good old fashioned Vegas gambling stories, and the Pats are jumping right into the offseason. Lets goo!

– Celtics Rise Like a Phoenix from the Ashes on the West Coast

– What is up with Kyrie? Miserable malcontent one day and then all happy go lucky after the Lakers game.

– Red Sox inching closer to Opening Day

– Best sporting events to bet on? March madness? Just betting 10 football games every Sunday?

– Red Sox Going With a Closer by Committee?

– Steven Wright suspension

– WEEI 8 man radio rotation

– Patriots Offseason/Free Agency

– Michael Bennett in, Trey Flowers out?

– Danny Amendola Reunion?

Dustin Pedroia is Back!

By on • ( 1 Comment )

Image result for dustin pedroia scream

On Thursday afternoon, for the first time in 281 days, Dustin Pedroia saw some live action for the Red Sox!

Granted, it’s only spring training. And he did only get one at bat. BUT that at bat resulted in a nice base hit to left field and a run scored. Welcome back, Pedey:

So what does this all mean? Well, not much really. We already know that Dustin Pedroia is being given the chance to revive his career this season, battling it out with Brock Holt and Eduardo Nunez to be the team’s starting second baseman. After years of serving as the team’s heart and soul, winning two World Series and a league MVP award in his first nine seasons, things haven’t gone so well for him over the past few years.

Since 2014, Pedroia has played in a total of 490 regular-season games, including all of three last year. He’s dealt with ailments ranging from a freak thumb injury while sliding into a base to a much more serious degenerative knee condition, which many believe will make it quite difficult for the 35-year-old to make a comeback in 2019, no matter how much the scrappy veteran may want to prove the haters wrong.

Regardless, today was a great way to start the attempt, and it was good to see No. 15 back out on the diamond.

Image result for dustin pedroia smile

And apparently, he’s been ready to go for quite a bit now. Dave Dombrowski mentioned at the beginning of February that Pedroia had been running and working out in Arizona for months before spring training even began. Then, there was this little clip from Mass Live the other day, proving that he’s still got that signature swing and lion-esque confidence we’ve seen him display throughout his entire career (SOUND ON – and wait for the last line at the end):

There’s the Pedey we all know and love! It’s nice to know that, even through it all, he still believes the Laser Show is ready for business once more:

Again, Sox Nation will need to temper expectations. After all, he was in for less than a third of the game today, and we still have a long way to go before the regular season even begins. The team has already stated that he’s very unlikely to be an every-day player anymore, and 125 games is the benchmark the team’s brass is apparently aiming for this season.

But if anyone in the world can overcome the doubt and succeed on pure hubris and determination alone, it’s this guy. He’s done it his entire life. “Too small. “Too slow. “Not enough power.” Etc., etc., etc. He’s always been the little engine that could.

I’m not saying that he’s going to chug along the tracks like he used to in his prime, but it’s just nice to have the old conductor back. And today was a pretty solid way to start making his way out of the station.

Clay Buchholz Will Be Back at Fenway in 2019!

By on • ( Leave a comment )

…as a member of the Toronto Blue Jays.

Curious that the Diamondbacks didn’t want him back, no? Granted he only made 16 starts, but he had a 2.01 ERA last season. That really is a classic Buchholz stat line though. Absolutely dominant for 98.1 innings then misses the rest of the year with a myriad of injuries.

When Buchholz is on he is one of the nastiest pitchers in the game. Unfortunately he’s so rarely “on” that it becomes more trouble than its worth. He’s 34 years old now so if it hasn’t happened by now it’s probably never going to happen, but he has still yet to pitch 200 innings or make 30 starts in a season. One of the most frustrating Red Sox players of all time, but its hard to not look back fondly on a guy that was part of two World Series winning teams and someone who threw a no-hitter at Fenway.

You can’t complain about how the Sox have done over the past 15 years with 4 championships during that span, but this team has won in a much different fashion than what many would have expected. I’ll never forget looking at this team in 2008 and thinking our rotation would be set for a decade with Josh Beckett, Jon Lester, and Clay Buchholz all spinning gems with Papelbon and Craig Hansen closing games out. (I’ll never forget seeing a guy on Landsdowne with a stitched Hansen jersey the WEEK he made his MLB debut. Save your money and think twice before buying a jersey kids.) Things worked out a bit differently, but can’t complain about the results.

I’ll see you again Clay, this side or the other.

 

I’m Having Impure Thoughts About These Pics of Mookie Betts in the Gym

By on • ( Leave a comment )

What do you do after you win the MVP? You get back in the damn gym and keep grinding. I love it. Mookie is listed at 5’9″ so he’s not a big guy to begin with and especially wearing baggy baseball jerseys every day it goes unnoticed, but dude is low key YOKED.

A lot of people probably still think of him as the scrawny guy he was down at Pawtucket,

Not the Adonis you see before you today.

Getting a little flustered if we’re being honest.

This is exactly what you want to see out of your best player though. Not resting on his laurels and falling back into the trappings of a professional bowler lifestyle. Nope, dude is getting after it because he wants to be the best Red Sox highest paid player of all time.

New York Station SNY Has Been Tweeting a Daily Tim Tebow Moment Every Day and Its Awesome

By on • ( Leave a comment )


These are some Grade-A, sarcastic, bullshit tweets right here. It would seem everyone in America is in agreement that Tim Tebow has no business being at Mets spring training, but people love them some Tebow. I love Tebow, the dude just fascinates me. I don’t know if I would watch a Tebow reality show because it would just consist of him working out, going to church, and holding hands with his Miss Universe girlfriend. Not exactly Party Down South material, but hey people are interested in the guy despite his lack of real, sustained success as a professional. So SNY says alright you dummies you want more Tebow coverage well here’s the Daily Tim Tebow Moment. Chewing his fingernails in the outfield, walking around the warning track, drinking water. Just a ridiculous place we’ve reached as a society. Snake it til you make it Tim, I respect that game.

PS – If you’ve never seen Party Down South, you must stop whatever you’re doing and go watch it right now. It’s basically the south’s version of Jersey Shore and it used to be on the Country Music TV network. Just good, wholesome, salt of the earth southerners getting blackout drunk every day on TV for our enjoyment.