There’s obviously not going to be a lot of optimism in Chicago this season, as least for the North Siders, as the Chicago Cubs have entered yet another rebuilding season with new manager Dale Sveum, general manager Jed Hoyer and president Theo Epstein. But the beauty of baseball is that even in rebuilding years, miracles can happen, and the Cubs could be that Cinderella team that comes from nowhere this year to surprise us all. That’s some good optimism right there.

Unfortunately, not a lot of people share it. As you can see in the banner image, CLTV took a fan poll yesterday to gauge optimism among the Cubby faithful and at least at one point things weren’t looking so hot. But don’t worry, polls are stupid and there are some positive people out there still.

Read the rest of this entry »

In case you missed “Conan” on TBS last week, and judging by the ratings you probably did, Conan O’Brien caused a minor stir after he Tweeted the following message to his fellow Boston Red Sox fans:

“Remember, Red Sox fans, they still have to live in Tampa.”

And because we’ve already seen that no sports fans in Tampa can take a simple, harmless joke, local shock jock Mike “Cowhead” Calta once again rallied his legions of mouth-breathing, stay-at-home Nickelback fans and demanded that O’Brien issue an official apology on his TV show.

WHPT-FM afternoon drive host Mike “Cowhead” Calta got his fans involved too.

An explicit hashtag resulted — #F–kCoco — along with a campaign to harass, (I mean, remind) the TBS star into taking back his insult.

Calta posted tweets with the number for O’Brien’s offices and the personal cellphone of the show’s publicist, Drew Shane.

(Via TampaBay.com)

Surprisingly, O’Brien caved to Cowhead’s demands and issued a full apology on last Thursday’s show.

Read the rest of this entry »

Today at With Leather and across the sports-o-sphere has been a celebration of the “greatest night in baseball history”. If you aren’t up to speed, you can check out some of the amazing statistics or take a look at the emotional faces of men who both played in and watched the games.

The Tampa Bay Rays are going to the playoffs, and that works out well for The Dugout — that be-goggled gentleman in the photo is Kyle Farnsworth, relief pitcher and folk hero of the Official Chatroom For Major League Baseball. He pitched nearly a full inning against New York’s Scott Proctor, and if you’re a Dugout historian (and I know you are) you’ll know important that is to our epic, long-term storytelling.

Regardless, please enjoy today’s Dugout, which is technically the first in our semi-annual, semi-daily recapping of the MLB playoffs. (And drop us a comment, would you?)

Read the rest of this entry »

Last night was one of the greatest nights in the history of the American League, and maybe baseball itself. Evan Longoria was hitting a walk-off homer to push the Tampa Bay Rays into the playoffs … and at almost the exact same moment, Robert Andino of the Baltimore Orioles was singling to left to pull the Boston Red Sox out.

One of the reasons baseball and the moments that make it great are so engaging is that there’s a stat for literally everything; if you look hard enough, you could probably find a website listing caught-stealing ratios explaining how the amount of drug vials in Tim Raines’ pockets effected his baserunning.

What you see on the left is a pair of amazing charts from Sports Club Stats — the one at the top is titled “Tampa Bay Rays Chance Will Make Playoffs”. The one on the bottom, “Boston Red Sox Chance Will Make Playoffs”. They become even more fun when you play with the interactive versions, which allow you to hover over each little circle and find out what was going on and why it’s so high or low on the chart. Compare and contrast them for yourself:

Boston Red Sox Chance Will Make Playoffs
Tampa Bay Rays Chance Will Make Playoffs

Wonderful. I’m guessing Baltimore’s has been a straight line tracing the bottom since 1997.

[h/t Matt Ufford]

Major League Baseball is taking important steps toward being hockey. Firstly, the number of black players keeps declining, and by 2025 the American League will be a 47-year old Milton Bradley and 349 white guys. Secondly, Bud Selig and The Owners (a great name for a band) are once again talking about expanding the playoffs, adding a second wild card team and allowing ten clubs (1/3rd of baseball) to compete. Right now there are 30 teams in the NHL and 28 of them make the playoffs, so you pretty much have to be the worst thing ever to miss out.

“I would say we’re moving to expanding the playoffs, but there’s a myriad of details to work out,” commissioner Bud Selig said Thursday at his annual meeting with The Associated Press Sports Editors. “Ten is a fair number.”

A few of the details to be worked out include:

1. Is this a thing you honestly want to do, or do you keep allowing more teams in because the Red Sox can’t finish higher than third place?
2. If we’re letting everybody into the playoffs, why are we still playing 162 g.d. games?
3. Do we really want the Rockies in the playoffs every year? The Rockies?
4. Eventually we’re going to have to have a bunch of “best of one” series and Roy Halladay will have to pitch eight times a week.
5. Is ten a fair number if five of the ten come from the AL East?
6. Who gets to cover the Royals/Indians Double Wild Card playoff tiebreaker? HGTV? Can they stand to lose the carryover ratings from their infinite House Hunters marathon?

I miss the good old days, when baseball was a culturally-exclusive work and “two” was a fair number.

Barry Larkin is heading to the monolith.

ESPN reportedly has lured the MLB Network analyst to Bristol for its coverage of the upcoming 2011 baseball season. The move has not been confirmed by either network, and it’s unclear what role the former Reds shortstop would play for his new employer.

I’d say that this is good news for those who currently don’t have MLB Network coming into their TVs and weren’t able to enjoy gems of Larkin’s analysis, like this video of how infielders will call for pitches, and sometimes unintentionally tip them to the opposition. But it’s not, because at ESPN, things like raising your voice and looking into a player’s eyes actually counts for analysis, and while their reporters are often given leeway to be great at their jobs, their analysts are not. Over there, it’s more like, “Oh, A-Rod! Red Sox! Derpy derpy derp!” It’s funny because that’s how they actually talk over there.