Category: Baseball

Step One: Find Foot. Step Two: Insert in Mouth. Repeat as Necessary.

5/22/2011

The Barrister

This garbage is just WAY too predictable at this point. Feeling feisty after game 1 of the Subway Series, I posted this. I talked a little shit about Jeter. I talked a lot of shit about Yankee fans. And, while I added the requisite amount of caveats, I got cocky and self-righteous about my Mets and their prospects for the rest of the weekend.

Oh Goddammit. The Mets: Still Experts at Pooping the Bed
Jeter: Still Expert at Making Us His Bitch

For any Mets fans out there - and if you read this sorry excuse for a blog and our whining drivel about our shitty sports teams, I assume there's a decent chance you are - my apologies. The fact is that the Mets had an opportunity to shut the door on the series today by building on their 3-1 lead, but the 8 run 7th inning by the Bombers changed that right quick and in the end the Mets simply got worked. I really should have known better, and clearly my overzealous support and optimism had a big part in the Mets' losses last night and this afternoon. This is by no means the first time my attitude has caused a team of mine to lose, so I really feel quite ridiculous at my inability to temper my emotions. My bad folks. My bad.

Sadly, I can't promise that it won't happen again.

That said, to any Yankee fans out there - congrats you giant DBs. There's a billion reasons why it's stupid for you smug sons of bitches to gloat about this win (and boy did you on Twitter today), but I'll give you some slack since I have no choice but to assume that you're all still drunk from the game and your celebrations at beating a team full of reserves. If I were in your position, I'd be drunk too. And then I'd stab myself in the leg out of principle. And I'd like it.

As for me, this Mets Subway series loss - putting them back to two games below .500 while reviving serious questions about whether they can stay afloat long enough to get at least marginally healthy - has me feeling like my old self: depressed and in need of some shots of Crown and/or Jame-o to get me out of this funk. Toss in losses by Liverpool - to close their season - and FC Buffalo - to open theirs , and I'm left finding singular solace in women's soccer and the dominating performance by Marta and the WNY Flash this evening. And even though I don't have much of a problem defending my decision to watch and cheer for the 2010 FIFA Player of the Year playing for a WNY team, especially after all my other teams had disappointing outcomes this weekend, given the relatively small scale of the WPS and the apparent meaninglessness of the Flash win compared to a Subway Series loss, I'm all too conscious that this has been a pathetic little weekend for my teams.

Not that I'm the least surprised. Just a typical f*cking day of DGWU.

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After a Friday Night Defeat, Will the Evil Empire Strike Back?

5/21/2011

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Luckily for the Rebels, these smug f*ckers seriously
underestimated those little Ewoks from Queens

The Barrister

As part of my process of self-introduction to our beloved DGWU readers, I think its necessary to say that I'm a Yankee hater. Much of the time, I'm forced to cloak my hate for the benefit of my Yankee fan father-in-law and my wife who generously supports any team followed by anyone in our family. It's not difficult to give many life-long Yankee fans a pass, since I can't very well hate on those whose fandom was set early on in their childhood. Yet, as successful as the team is, and as much as they've historically poached the cream of the MLB talent pool, it's hard for me to think anything good about the franchise. I always hated Yankee fans in Buffalo as I grew up, as I had the irking suspicion that my peers were taking the easy way out by choosing a front-runner that could help them soothe the pain of our hometown sports failures. My family (by way of my parents growing up in New England) cheered for the lowly, cursed Red Sox as I grew up - which, predicably enough, was less appealing to me after celebrating the 2004 championship with my parents while I was living at home that fall.

Making a switch to the Mets - which wasn't realy a switch, since I could honestly give a crap about major league ball until I caught a live game at Shea in '05 - seemed like a logial step because those roots of support for the BoSox certainly engrained a certain level of loathing for the Yankees on any number of levels. Living in New York, I've learned a lot of new reasons to hate on the Bombers, not the least of which is my general feelings about certain elements of their fan base. Indeed, now that the Sox are winning on the regular, their fanbase has been displaying some of those same annoying tendencies, which makes me fall all the more comfortable with distancing myself from the boys from Fenway.

I mention all of this backstory because yesterday over lunch at work, I had a pretty long conversation with a coworker who was adamant that the Yankees would sweep the Subway Series, that the Mets are the embarassment of the league, and that shouldn't I just get over the Mets and start following a winner? The guy, who I generally like quite a bit, came off as a complete dumbass and had it been a lunch over a couple beers, I probably would have gotten a lot more heated than I ended up being. He was completely oblivious to problems within their lineup, to the fact that Jeter is on his way down in production and that the pitching isn't as good as everyone keeps saying it is. In my preview post yesterday, I purporsefully chose not to bring up this infuriating conversation, mostly because I had a healthy fear that the Mets might actually get swept, and since this coworker has made a point to check in on this blog every once in a while, I didn't want to embarass myself too badly.

But, it's Saturday now, Ithe "lowly" Mets won 2-1, and I'm happy gloating a little bit. In other words, suck it Yankees and your knuckle-dragging fans. You just got beat by a bunch of AAA players and a bullpen of guys who, at the beginning of the season, were pegged as the worst in the league.

If you didn't watch (and I confess that I took breaks to watch more wife-friendly TV), The game itself was great. Dickey pitched a gem, giving up only 4 hits ,including 1 HR by Texeira, over 6 innings. A solid effort for him - especially given his 5 1/3 inning, 11 hit, 6 run performance against the Astros in his previous outing. Consecutive full innings by O'Connor, Isringhausen and K-Rod kept the Yankees hitless through the 7th, 8th and 9th. Add in a key 5th inning A-Rod grounder up the middle stopped by Jose Reyes, and the Mets defense really came through in a big way.

This defensive effort set the stage for the Mets offense to do just enough to win, and they did - in the form of Daniel Murphy taking advantage of the short porch in right field by hitting the ultimate game-winning homer to put the score at 2-1. Murphy, who had been a favorite of mine when he was up with the Mets a couple years back, has taken advantage of the recent opportunity to start and, yesterday, to bat 2nd in the order. Mike Vaccaro of the Post had a really great article about Murph today and it really makes me happy to see the guy coming back around after his recent struggles - much like the team itself.

Putting all this positivity aside - as it is so easy to do given my utlimate confidence that the Mets are actually not all that good of a team - I know those Yankees are going to come out firing tonight. The City press was pretty hard on the Bombers today, and with good reason. Not that it stopped the guy in front of me at Dunkin Donuts this morning from spouting off about how great the Yanks are and how much the Mets suck. To him, and many others, the Yankees' predominance in the world of New York baseball is a matter of black and white, and a struggling and aging team won't convince them otherwise.

So, even though these clowns aren't about to shut up anytime soon, boy is it fun to watch the Mets and its lineup of young guns give it a try.

Follow me on Twitter! @theycallmedubs
And the DGWU Crew generally: @DGWUSports

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Mets @ Yanks: Can the Amazin's Take Advantage of a Surprisingly Mediocre Bombers Squad?

5/20/2011

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The Barrister

The Subway Series is always a weird and wonderful time in New York. A buzz fills the air - though, today that might just be the hope that The Rapture could leave us behind and a little better off - and fans express their allegiances with hats, jerseys, t-shirts, cursing arguments in the street. It's great. But, it goes without saying that the level of buzz has been a little muted in the past few years, what with the Yankees being so awesome generally and the Mets being so pathetic generally. As a Mets fan, I'm all too aware of this trend.

But, for this first meeting between the two teams from the Big Apple, the posturing is different. The Mets, while certainly not a good team, are making a little bit of a run of it lately. Injury-plagued like always, this team is doing a lot with a little so far this season. When D. Wright went out with a diagnosed stress fracture in his back, some fans may have lost what little hope was left, but the week since has shown some fight in this team that you can't help but be impressed at. Typical Buffalo rationale for following a garbage squad, I know. Don't like it? Kill yourself.

Seriously, though, the Mets started off SUPER rocky this year, winning their first seies against the Marlins, but then losing consecutive series against the Philles (no surprise), Nationals (dammit), Rockies (SWEPT..those were a couple rough days for me), Braves and Astros. Holy shit that's depressing to go through. The Mets were 6-13 heading into a late April series against the D-Bags, I mean, Backs, which resulted in a 3-0 series win. In hidsight, that sweep of Arizona was a big turning point, as the Mets proceeded take series against the Nationals (twice), Dodgers, Astros and Rockies since, with series losses only to the Phillies (2-1) and Giants (2-1), as well as a single game series loss to the Marlins on May 16th. Suddenly, with TWO (two!) pitchers out for the year, a franchise third baseman out for at least a month (and probably longer), a future frachise first baseman on the DL as well, an ace still on the mend from off-season surgery and an owner who is a complete asshat, the Mets are 21-22 and a mere 5 games back of Philly, and - by my count - only 3.5 games back of the wildcard, Sure, WAYYYY too early for talk like that, but it's just to prove my point. The Mets may be awful, but they also may NOT be. A lot of baseball left and shit if I know how these apparent scrubs are going to be positioned when the heat and humidity of August starts to kick into full gear in Flushing.

And, perhaps unsurprisingly, I'm not alone in feeling that this Subway Series may not be the mismatch that it probably should be and that I thought it was destined to be as of three weeks ago. Don't get me wrong, though, The Yankees roster is absurdly stacked from the top down, and the Mets don't get the benefit of forcing the Yanks' AL pitchers to bat since this game is in the Bronx. I'm not going to pretend that the Yankees should lose this series, or even a game of this series, with the squad that they've purchased. But, facts are facts, and the Bombers aren't playing all that great ball lately. They sit only 2.5 games above the Mets in terms of standings, and - despite their three game winning streak coming into tonight's game (two of which were against the Orioles, though, and don't count) - they've had a rough go of it this month with recent series losses to the Sox (SWEEP!! Hooray Sox!), the Tigers and Royals. Sure, they still took out the Rangers in the midst of all that, but those boys from fact Texas are simply in a slow, downward spiral after their hot 6-0 start.

As for the Yankees, the story is that team just isn't hitting well. Their leading player (at least amongst their usual starters) in terms of average is Robinson Cano, and he's sitting at .288. Jeter and A-Rod are at .257 and .261, respectively, Not really what we've come to expect. Curtis Granderson is playing alright - he's second in AL with 14 HRs and 3rd in AL with 32 RBIs - but his .270 average is still below where you want all of these guys on the supposedly deadly Yankees batting order. In fact, with Texeira as the best Yank in terms of OBP, and with him sitting at 15th in the AL, and A-Rod coming in at 33rd, there should be more than a little concern amongst Bomber fans.

A-Rod: Resident Douche and Underperformer

Given the state of things, and despite the instincts of the reasonable parts of my brain, Mets fans have to be excited for this series. With all the injuries (seriously, though, they've needed new conditioning coaches for YEARS now) and typical ineptitude with Los Mets, nothing would make me happier than to stick it to the Yankees this weekend and prove that they're not even fit to beat a team of AAA call-ups from Buffalo (woot!).

Starters, according to MLB.com, are projected to be RA Dickey (1-5, ERA of 5.08) and Freddy Garcia (2-3, ERA of 3.22). With the recent troubles at the plate for the Yankees, I expect Dickey's knuckler to create some problems, and am hopeful for a series-opening win.

Game Prediction: Mets 6, Yankees 2.
Series Prediction: Mets take two - one tonight plus a big win for Big Pelf in Sunday's rubber match.

Follow me on Twitter! @theycallmedubs
And for the DGWU Crew, @DGWUSports

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Your DGWU 2011 Buffalo Off-Season Guide: Part 2 (The Other Stuff)

5/14/2011

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No comment needed

The Scizz
Welcome to Part two of my off-season guide to keep you entertained until The Sabres and Bills are playing again. On Thursday I dedicated the whole post to hockey and took you through all the events leading up to the first full year of the Pegula Era. This week I explore football and all the other stuff to keep you occupied through the summer of 2011. The Buffalo Bills, soccer, NASCAR, and baseball: pick your poison.

The future? Or just still in college mode?

NFL Free Agency & Training Camp – No set dates

Even with the lockout lifted, a new CBA still needs to take place, and until then the fans are being left in pigskin limbo. With free agency unable to take place, no undrafted FA’s were able to signed and we still do not know what players will be restricted or unrestricted. The one thing that I hope to God happens is that Donte Whitner leaves town. After his last twitter tirade, he still said he is open to returning to Buffalo. The self proclaimed football-Jesus needs to shut up and move on. Also if he could get hit by a truck, that would be aaaaaaawesome.

When, or if free agency does open, the Bills still have many holes to fill, especially at QB, TE, OT, DB, & ILB (If Poz walks). The Amish Rifle and Levi Brown are the only QB’s on the roster. Do they add an experienced veteran like McNabb or Marc Bulger, or a mid-level guy like Tyler Thigpen or Matt Moore? Either way, this is Fitzy’s team until they add a QB in the draft. Andrew Luck, anyone???

As mentioned, they also need tons of other help. 2010 waiver wire pickup Scott Chandler is tops on the TE depth chart (Desmond Clark is most likely available with the emergence of Greg “Greggie” Olsen), Erik Pears is our starting right tackle, and we have only three experienced corners, two of which are injury-prone. And with no Poz, it would mean rookie Kelvin Sheppard immediately steps into a starting role (maybe not a bad thing). So there is a ton of work still to be done. Of course Buffalo always seems to find some diamonds in the rough through undrafted FA’s, like Jason Peters, Jabari Greer, and Jim Leonhard. Those guys were steals and I’m so glad….what was that? We let all of them leave? Oh ok, that makes sense. *Smacks head against wall*

FC Buffalo Season – May 22nd opening against FC Reading Revolution
June 10th @NJ Blaze

Of course there are many more dates besides the two above, but those are the games that stick out right now. May 22nd the team opens up their regular season at home and the big day on June 10th will see the DGWU crew attending their game on Jersey soil (or is it mud?) in full force. Our trip to Central Jersey is sure to be exciting and will most likely end with my girlfriend’s parents bailing me out of jail. Check out the Barrister’s excellent post about Nick Mendola’s scrappy FC Buffalo squad and get excited for the upcoming season. You can check out thefull schedule here and plenty of coverage on the team, right where you are at DGWU Sports. I just talked about soccer in a post. The Scizz talked about soccer in a post. I need a medal or maybe one of those nifty scarves I see all you fans with.

NASCAR fun....you can't beat it, I promise you.

The Heluva Good! Sour Cream Dips at The Glen - August 14th

Oh yes, out of Europe and into redneck country. I have to be honest, I feel a little more comfortable here. No, I’m not a redneck, but I grew up watching NASCAR with my Dad and actually attended this race for solid 10 years with him. This year I hope to bring other members of the DGWU crew with me to celebrate some racin’ road-course style in upstate New York. Just a few hours away from NYC, this track is located in the middle of nowhere, but with a registered camping site located within the track infield and my father’s mustachioed best friend pounding beers, it is sure to be a good time. If you are not a race fan because you think that left turns are boring, this is a race that may peak your interest. The road-course features many twist and turns and you can check outa map of the track here and a list of the events here. The party goes Thursday – Sunday and I guarantee you a good time if you attend. Unfortunately, dumb ass fuckheads still take up the majority of the sports' fan base. Last year one of my favorites, former F1 driver Juan Pablo Montoya took the checkered flag amongst outright racist boos from the crowd. Hmmm, maybe NASCAR and soccer do have something in common. SOCCER NASCAR These people need to die fiery deaths over a tank of blood thirsty sharks.

The farmer in the dell....bitches.

Baseball: Orioles @ Yankees - July 29 – 31

   Yankees @ Orioles - August 26 - 28

   Cubs @ Mets - September 9 – 11

   Bisons games – Check the schedule

Always remember that during the summer months there are oodles and oodles of pointless baseball games being played for you to enjoy! I realize that maybe we have readers who are Indians, Pirates, and Blue Jays fans because of close proximity to Buffalo, but the DGWU crew represent the Cubs, Mets, and Orioles. The three series listed above are all ones to take interest in, because some of us may actually attend these games. You can look forward to ridiculously detailed Oriole knowledge from the Apologist at some point on this site, continued live-blogging of Cubs games from the Yachtsman and I, and terrifying accounts of being a newish Mets fan from the Barrister. I for one am excited about another possible DGWU roadtrip to Baltimore’s beautiful Inner Harbor for the Yankees series. Get on that Aps, but be careful of Omar Comin' (see image above).

If you don't understand this image, I'm not sure what to say to you.

The DGWU CrapTastiCast – Every week this summer (hopefully)

Finally, if you are new to our site or at least have ignored our lovely podcast, please continue to look for new episodes of the CrapTastiCast with many different Buffalo-related guests all summer (including Joe from BuffaloWins this Monday). We will try our best to have a new one out to you each week with fresh/stale comedy, average sports knowledge, and sweeping generalizations. At least you get to hear that awesome intro music we have. Feel free to hit that nifty little iTUNES subscribe button down below to keep track of all new episodes and please download the past ones. It is a guaranteed goodtime for all to enjoy (except children, the elderly, and anyone originally from Philadelphia). And naturally a lovely way to waste away your mornings at work. Catch ya on the flipside.

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Opening Day was Yesterday and I Could Give a Flying F#@$. A Brief History of My Baseball Fandom.

4/1/2011

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The Scizz on Monday afternoon

The Scizz

No "dismantling of the Bills' draft" column today folks. Not up for it. I have already posted once this week and I had a god-awful stomach virus in the last few days that was worse than watching Patrick Lalime or Jose Theodore suit up as Ryan Miller's backup. Which reminds me: What do you call it when you shit and vomit at the same time? I am not sure if an official word has ever been created for this phenomena. I was going to connect them and call it a "SHIVOM", but it sounds eerily Yiddish and I don't want to offend any of our fine Jewish friends (Hey Bluedot! Told you I'd work a shout-out in one day). Please leave your shit/vomit word creations in the comments. IT TAKES A VILLAGE PEOPLE!!!

Welcome to the 2011 MLB season. I'll wake you in November.

So what's up with the post? Well the fact is I am simply not ready for baseball right now AND possibly all season. Not feeling it. Interest has faded. More concerned with new episodes of Pawn Stars.

As you may know (read our damn bio's!), I am a Cubs fan, and have been since the days of grade school. It may be easy to blame my lack of concern with the game today solely based on the ineptitude of the Chicago franchise, but I swear to Jim/Thurman/Andre/Bruce, that's not it. You see, baseball and I have always had a love/hate relationship. I will not bore you with too much detail, but as a young child, Buffalo only had the Triple-A Buffalo Bisons, so with no real MLB team to root for, I flat out didn't give a shit about Baseball. This went on through most of grade school until I discovered afternoon games on WGN. As soon as I walked in the door from school, there was the brilliance of Harry Caray calling the game, with the likes of Ryan Sandberg, Mark Grace, Greg Maddux, Andre Dawson, and of course the world's greatest utility man, Luis Salazar! I was hooked. My love for baseball grew and my love of the Cubs grew. I always kept it to myself because my friends either didn't give a crap about baseball yet, or chose the Yankees or Mets because it was the same state.

This early Cubbies obsession went on through Junior High, but as soon as the strike of 1994-1995 occurred, I again was disillusioned with America's past time. Besides, I was in High School now with better things to do, like force myself to be accepted by everybody I came in contact with, ride the pine in basketball only to miss two gimme free-throws in my only chance to win a game, and make my parents feel guilty for not buying me six new pairs of Nikes yearly so that I would look cool. Gosh darn those were some wonderful years. SHIVOM! (still not working, is it?)

Enter College. Here I could ramble on forever, but I'll save you your time and effort. My interest peaked again in these years. I will say it started to rise right before I left, mostly because of the Home Run race between McGwire and Sosa, but it didn't completely get me back in the groove until that first full year of undergrad. Yes, having my "favorite" team on the front pages was awesome, but their was still this lack of coverage in Buffalo, or any love for the game from any of my friends, and that held me back. What pulled me back in, was attending a college that was filled with New Yorkers. In my entire life I had never seen people so obsessed with baseball. Their passion for baseball was equivalent to my passion for Hockey and Football. Watching games with all these guys that would eventually become my lifelong friends was one of the best parts of college. I could play the middle man between my Mets and Yankees friends because of my Chicago love and enjoy all of the games.

*Sidenote: During the 2000 subway series, my friends and I would go to our usual Thursday night hangout, this dirty and over-crowded bar that had cheap beer and would serve anyone with a shitty fake ID called....you guessed it, "CHEERS". As we walked in the side entrance, they were only letting in one person at a time, which of course made us nervous that the ID policy had suddenly changed. But what was really happening, was the bouncer asking everybody "Yankees or Mets"? He was a Mets fan, and if you answered "Mets", it was two bucks to get in. If you answered Yankees, it was five. I answered "I'm a Cubs fan". He shook his head, said he was sorry and let me in free of charge. YAY SADNESS!!!

Yup. These were the type of crazy assholes who got me back into the game of baseball.

After college, I moved back to Western New York briefly and my interest began to fade again. But the Cubs were on fire and there was no way I was leaving this team behind! Then Steve Bartman happened. Fuck. I actually blamed myself for this. I kept saying, "Holy Shit! As a Buffalo fan, my luck is now screwing other cities too." This is from a real conversation I had in my living room.

This did not last long however, because in the summer of 2004 I moved to New York City, the motherland of baseball (Up yours Boston! Every one of your franchises has won a championship now so you can no longer whine about ANYTHING!). Once here, baseball surrounded me. I got to see the Cubs play in Shea and Yankee Stadium several times (No wins on record yet), and I even found other Cubs fans to hang out with and watch baseball, a first for me. It has been pretty awesome to say the least.

The only place in New York City that is a Bills/Sabres/Cubs bar. A one stop shop for emotional distress and alcoholism.

Yet this season. I really don't care. I didn't care when the Cubs signed Carlos Pena. I didn't care when they re-signed Kerry Wood. And when I heard last week, "Opening day begins Thursday March, 31st", I sort of shrugged it off and went back to work. I have no clue why this is, and by the end of the season my interest may return. Maybe its because I'm in full-on hockey playoff mode, or maybe its because the possibilty of no upcoming NFL season has scared to death, but at the same time happy I won't have to deal with any letdowns this year. Who knows. Until I figure it out, you can find me in my room watching highlights of Jhonas Enroth and Nathan Gerbe over and over again on my laptop. Midget fetish? I hope not.

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Forward>>

Step One: Find Foot. Step Two: Insert in Mouth. Repeat as Necessary.

After a Friday Night Defeat, Will the Evil Empire Strike Back?

Mets @ Yanks: Can the Amazin's Take Advantage of a Surprisingly Mediocre Bombers Squad?

Your DGWU 2011 Buffalo Off-Season Guide: Part 2 (The Other Stuff)

Opening Day was Yesterday and I Could Give a Flying F#@$. A Brief History of My Baseball Fandom.

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