First Toronto Blue Jays broadcast of 2011 - Sunday, March 6th

Two weeks and two days from today - at 1:05 PM - Rogers Sportsnet is scheduled to broadcast a spring training game from McKechnie Field, as the Toronto Blue Jays take on Pittsburgh at the Pirates' spring training facility in Bradenton, Florida.

Here's a calendar from MLB Toronto Blue Jays site. I've circled the date of first televised baseball game of the year.

Toronto's first spring training game for 2011 is on Saturday, February 26th at 1:05 PM and will be broadcast on The Fan590 here in Toronto with Jerry Howarth and Alan Ashby back in the radio chairs - check your local listings.

Sportsnet published a handy list of spring training broadcasts in both TV and radio:
(link is in the title)

Jays on Sportsnet

On Rogers Sportsnet:
3/6/2011 Toronto vs. Pittsburgh   1:00PM (SPORTSNET)
3/13/2011 Tampa Bay vs. Toronto 1:00PM (SPORTSNET ONE)       
3/23/2011 Toronto vs. NY Yankees   7:00PM (SPORTSNET EAST, ONTARIO & PACIFIC)
3/30/2011 Toronto vs. Tampa Bay   4:00PM (SPORTSNET)

Sportsnet Radio The FAN 590 & Sportsnet Radio The FAN 960:
2/26/2011 Toronto vs. Detroit 1:05 FAN 590
2/27/2011 Detroit vs. Toronto 1:05 FAN 590, FAN 960
3/5/2011 Toronto vs. Detroit 1:05 FAN 960
3/6/2011 Pittsburgh vs. Toronto 1:05 FAN 590, FAN 960
3/12/2011 Toronto vs. Pittsburgh 1:05 FAN 590, FAN 960
3/13/2011 Toronto vs. Tampa Bay 1:05 FAN 960
3/19/2011 NY Yankees vs. Toronto 1:05 FAN 590, FAN 960
3/20/2011 Toronto vs. Minnesota 1:05 FAN 590, FAN 960
3/26/2011 Philadelphia vs. Toronto 1:05 FAN 590, FAN 960
3/27/2011 Toronto vs. Baltimore 1:05 FAN 590, FAN 960



mh

BBA suffers self important deception neurosis - eats it own

(This piece has been held in draft since early December)

So the Baseball Bloggers Alliance has a constitution now, and publishing quotas, and content regulations.

A member must vote on at least one of the BBA's year-end Major League Baseball awards and must be posted to your blog - or the Hall of Fame ballot. One must also publish the results of the BBA's Hall of Fame balloting. And one must publish at least once a month (see Article II below).

Well holy shit! I haven't published anything here since November; so here goes.

I became aware that these conditions existed last month, as several blogs were sent packing for not being on point enough to just answer an email from the BBA. It was at this point I found out I had to vote on one of the years ballots, so as it was Hall of Fame voting time; I check-marked some squares and pushed "Submit", to the democratic (w)ill.

You may be able to tell, I'm not a big fan of Major League Baseball. If it wasn't for Marvin Miller and the Professional Baseball Player's Association, this corporate club of crooks would still be sending great stars off to live their retirements in poverty. If Congress, towards their own ends, didn't happen to be in a position to wield the anti-trust hammer over this group of goons - they would have crushed that union by legal or extra legal means long ago I'm sure.

So when a group of Baseball Bloggers who couldn't even write a proper press release last year start telling me what content I have to include in my Blog... well you can guess I'm going to to find a way to skewer those BBA rule fetishists and MLB at the same time.

Welcome to the nightmare.

BBA Constitution

Baseball Bloggers Alliance
Constitution
Article I: Purpose
The purpose of the Baseball Bloggers Alliance (BBA) is to foster communication and collaboration amongst bloggers across baseball, increasing understanding and knowledge about the game.
Article II: Membership
Any blog that has been in existence three months or has 20 posts is eligible to become a member of the BBA. Members are placed into chapters that correspond with their blogging focus.
To retain membership, a blogger must meet three criteria.

• Criteria 1: A blogger must not have a gap longer than one (1) month between posts on his/her blog.
• Criteria 2: A blogger must have at least thirty (30) posts during a calendar year, save the year that they join the BBA.
• Criteria 3: A blogger must vote in at least one (1) of the three (3) voting opportunities during the year. (See Article III.)

If the criteria are not maintained, a blog may be placed on inactive status or dropped from the organization, depending on circumstances.
The criteria above for eligibility and retaining membership will go into effect January 1, 2011.
A blogger may not have more than one voting blog in the organization at a time. Blogs, websites, or individuals may also be listed as a “Friend of the BBA.” Friends receive e-mailings, are listed on the official BBA website, and may post the BBA logo on their site, but may not participate in any of the voting opportunities. Friends also do not have any requirements to retain their status.
Article III: Voting
There will be three (3) different voting opportunities during a calendar year. As noted in Article II, a member must participate in at least one (1) of these opportunities.

• In January, there will be a vote based on the official Hall of Fame ballot for the BBA recommendation of who should be selected. This will be done either via e-mail or internet form. All active members are eligible to participate.
• In June, there will be a vote for those to be selected to the Major League Baseball (MLB) All-Star Game. This voting will be done via posts on member blogs detailing their selections. All active members are eligible to participate.
• In October, there will be voting for post-season awards.

There will be five awards voted on. Newbie of the Year (to correspond with the official Rookie of the Year), Skipper of the Year (Manager of the Year), Pitcher of the Year (Cy Young Award), Player of the Year (MVP Award), and Goose Gossage Award (given to top reliever in each league).
Each chapter will receive two votes for each award. Votes will be delegated in a manner designated by the chapter president. Voters will vote for the league their team is in. In the case of the general, non-team-specific chapters, the voter may vote for whichever league they wish.
Ballots must be posted to the member’s blog (or another designated publically viewable area on the internet) by the deadline set for the award.
Article IV: Miscellaneous
Chapter presidents will be initially selected by the BBA President. Chapters are then free to set up their own methods of changing those presidents in the future, if they wish. If a chapter president resigns with no mechanism in place to select a replacement, the BBA President in consultation with other members of that chapter will appoint a new president.
Members are encouraged to link to other members and the official BBA website as well as posting a BBA logo on their site.

"Truck Day" picking up converts across the Majors

I'm trying to drum up some interest for the idea of celebrating a Toronto Blue Jays "Truck Day" in Toronto.

'What the hell is Truck Day?!' You may well ask.

Truck Day is the day the equipment truck leaves from the home field for the trip down to a team's spring training facility. We watch it pull off the dock and drive away - that's it. It's funny because it talks to a passion for baseball that makes non-believers stand and stare blankly.

Boston fans invented the ritual; here's a video of "Truck Day" in Boston 2007 - note the AC/DC Truck Day theme song seems to have been dubbed in with "Truck Day!" in the lyrics - or am I imagining that?.




Toronto NEEDS a "Truck Day" more than any other team because we're the most northerly MLB franchise - we're in the deepest grips of winter - we MUST have this early February baseball ritual because at this time of year we're not actually sure there will be an April.

Over at MLB.com "Truck Day" is getting some attention as teams' PR departments get on board.

I grabbed some coverage video associated with the article "Truck Day portends dawn of new season" by Mark Newman/MLB.com.

So here's video of three Truck Day's from 2010 that I uploaded to Youtube:

New York Met's Truck Day 2010

Texas Ranger's Truck Day 2010

Cincinnati Red's Truck Day 2010

Also from MLB.com a nice article on how the Chicago Cubs celebrated Truck Day last year: "Kids help send off Cubs' spring truck".

SB Nation reports in an article from last year, Truck Day 2010: Bigger And Better Than Ever, that in 2010 the Mets, the Cubs, the Indians and the Royals are doing some sort of Truck Day ritual; add to that list Boston and Arizona (??? - a 1/2 hour drive one would presume) and a total of seven teams have gotten on the Truck Day band wagon, so to speak.


(MLB Advanced Media will likely take the bottom three video's down because they aren't advanced enough to understand the value in letting fans embed MLB production. Perhaps this article will change MLB new media policy - but I'm not holding my breath - I'd be dead.) 
:)



mh

Toronto Blue Jays "Truck Day" 2011

Below is a letter I just sent into the Blue Jays, my pitch to try to get their help in organizing a "Truck Day" in Toronto.

'What the hell is Truck Day?!' You may well ask.

Well, Truck Day is the day the equipment truck leaves from the home field for the trip down to a teams spring training facility. We watch it pull off the dock and drive away, that's it, that's Truck Day. But in early February it makes April seem a whole lot closer; and it's funny - it talks to a passion for baseball that makes non-believers stand and stare blankly.

This is Truck Day Boston - 2007

This is Truck Day 2007 - A Re-enactment

Let's Go! Blue Jay fans! Lets pull together and get Truck Day Toronto going!

Note into Toronto Blue Jay's Official Site:

I see you're doing a "60 Day Countdown" towards the start of Spring Training. Many of us baseball fanatics look forward to the day pitcher and catchers report at Dunedin Florida - nothing happens - it's just a day on the calendar we mark; and we know in our hearts that somewhere, way down south in Florida baseballs are being thrown by our favourite players.

Some baseball fanatics in America have taken this silly ritual to the next step - making the day the equipment truck leaves the ball park heading for the particular teams spring training facility - a day of celebration.It happens about a week prior to the day catchers and pitchers report (as that's how long it takes for a transport truck to travel from say, Boston to the City of Palms Park in Fort Myers Florida.

I don't know if the Blue Jays store any equipment up here in Toronto, so maybe there isn't a truck that makes that trip, (I hope there is though); but that doesn't mean we can't have a Truck Day here in Toronto, perhaps as part of the "60 Day Countdown"? I'm trying to drum up some interest in this idea, whether it happens this year or next is un-important, but we NEED a truck Day more than any other MLB team, because we're the furthest north, deepest in the grips of winter - we need the ritual in the depths of February that is Truck Day - to give us hope that there will be actually be an April.

Below are a couple of Tweets I've sent recently that have a link to a Youtube video of Boston's Truck Day 2007 - there are related videos at Youtube with the keywords to more recent Boston Truck Days.

http://twitter.com/#!/m_holloway/status/32224586800037888

http://twitter.com/#!/m_holloway/status/32604317995241472

The video I point to is a 'virtual' Truck Day video from 2007 - and is something along the lines of what we could do here, this year - no budget, just fun.

Any information from inside the organization - whether there is a truck, do you want to help out in any way, etc. would be appreciated.

Michael Holloway
Baseball Blogs
(member Baseball Bloggers Alliance)
michaelholloway111@gmail.com

The note was sent into BlueJays "Help/Contact Us" portal, "How Can We Help?" Media comment section:
(Yeah, it's a MLB portal, they don't make it easy; really Web 1.0 around there.  If you want to send a note in, the last link is your friend.)

Follow me on Twitter if you want up to the minute news on this, or check back to this blog, there will be update posts at the "Truck Day" label.



mh

But we don't really you know, we hate baseball...

Canada has a long association with the game of baseball, going back to the earliest days of it's development - but hockey, and the big bucks the NFL generate up here dwarf the grand old game, even during the MLB postseason.

At the bottom of the MLB page that listed all the game dates and start times through the 2010 postseason there is this little note I found quite amusing...

In Canada, Rogers Sportsnet will broadcast all 2010 MLB Postseason games.
* if necessary

They're two separate items, but the way it's laid out ...

If you followed my scorecard keeping through the MLB postseason you know Rogers Sportsnet broadcast 29.5 of the 32 games played. One wasn't broadcast in favour Major League Soccer's home town Toronto FC, one in favour of Sunday Night Football, and one half of one because of a Toronto Maple Leafs game.

I guess it wasn't, "necessary".

:)

Toronto has always had a low opinion of itself - except when it has a too-high opinion of itself. So when the Blue Jays won the World Series in 1992 and 1993 the problem seemed solved. Suddenly we all walked with our heads high, when somebody said something critical about the city we took it to heart and tried to change - or else wrote it off to the ignorance of someone who should consider what they say before they say it.

But that has waned of late... to really be comfortable again with-in ourselves we need to win every single game, and every championship for as long as there is history.

So now, being interested in MLB - that we don't win - is only a part of an eminent strut, a put on, an attitude --- part of a post-modern understanding that we gleaned from when we were all happy with ourselves --- that if you act provincial, people will treat you that way. And it's not just Toronto, it's North American; we're all sluts for judgment, approval, acceptance.

In Toronto we pretend to like baseball still; and all (sic) the games are on TV, and the bla, bla, bla in the papers... .

But we don't really you know, we hate baseball. It's too slow, there's no hitting, nobody gets their bell rung every 60 seconds, it's boring - and now with the un-juiced ball, and the players off steroids - what's to watch?

At least with the NFL you can watch yourself watching the boring game - through the magic of betting in the pools that run in every bar - people spending all their money getting blotto, hoping to hit the jack pot so they can do it all again on Monday... and Thursday... and Saturday... .

Pretending to like baseball is something you do at work, in polite company, around girls you're trying to impress. In Canada, being openly baseball fan in a bar during hockey and football season is likely to piss someone off,

"RBI this, smart guy."

Thwack!



mh

A Comparison of the Symmetry of Tim Lincecum's and Cliff Lee's Scorecards in Game 5

Another in the ongoing Symmetry Series of post here at Baseball Blogs.

The final game of the 2010 World Series (weep) was all about pitching - as was the series in retrospect. The blow-outs in games one and two were, I think, aburrations caused by the pressure of the moment on young, inexperienced pitchers. These two line-ups are full of power and run scoring ability, but as we see in this chart once the pitching settled down the series became all about pitching.

Game    Matchup             Day      Date       Time ET
Gm 1    TEX 7 @ SF 11       Wed      Oct. 27    7:57 PM 
Gm 2    TEX 0 @ SF  9       Thu      Oct. 28    7:57 PM 
Gm 3    SF  2 @ TEX 4       Sat      Oct. 30    6:57 PM 
Gm 4    SF  4 @ TEX 0       Sun      Oct. 31    8:20 PM 
Gm 5    SF  3 @ TEX 1       Mon      Nov. 1     7:57 PM

So last night we finally get our 'year of the pitcher' World Series pitching spectacle for the ages. As such I wondered what a comparison between line drawing of the two starters might illuminate. Was there something to be seen in the metrics of simplification that might help us better understand the game, the series?

(All images are much larger on click)

Cliff Lee facing the San Francisco Giants line-up, 2010 World Series Game 5

(Screen shot from The Internet Baseball Scorecard Blog)

Tim Lincecum facing the Texas Rangers line-up 2010 World Series Game 5

(Screen shot from The Internet Baseball Scorecard Blog)

Below are two line drawings I made with Microsoft Paint. I filled in all the active at-bat boxes with colour, and then erased all the scorecard elements so you can see any patterns more easily.

Cliff Lee pitching to the Giants, batters faced per inning

Tim Lincecum pitching to the Rangers, batters faced per inning

On the left are the top and bottom of the 7th Inning; the top is Cliff Lee pitching to San Francisco, the lower is Tim Lincecum pitching to the Rangers.

I try to put aside my knowledge of the game when looking for patterns in the line drawings (I did after all, score it only 15 hours ago) and I notice that, just in the patterns, both pitchers hit their own kind of walls in the 7th inning. Both diagonal patterns break down there.

Lee's was the game breaking Hit, Hit, Homer inning where the Giants scored all 3 of their runs.

For Lincecum, a one run homer and a walk break up a nice smooth diagonal pattern in the drawing. He loses his bid for a shut out, and the momentum swings radically, to the Rangers bringing them right back into the game at the time.

There are 7 other post in this "Symmetry Series" here at Baseball Blogs.



mh

The Symmetry of Madison Bumgarner's World Series Game 4 Start

Here's another installment of The Symmetry Series of posts here at Baseball Blogs, where I illuminate the patterns that can be seen in scorecards of great pitching performances.

This one documents the San Francisco Giants' Madison Bumgarner's start in Game 4 of the 2010 World Series, against the Texas Rangers at Arlington Texas on October 31th 2010 - a game won by the Giants 4-0.

I'm using a scorecard I kept over at The Internet Baseball Scorecard Blog.

(all images are much larger on click)


The Pitching line's of Starter Madison Bumgarner - World Series Game 4
(and closer Brian Wilson - 3 outs)

Screen shot from The Internet Baseball Scorecard


Texas Rangers face Madison Bumgarner in World Series Game 4

Screen shot from The Internet Baseball Scorecard

This is a line drawing I made in Microsoft Paint where I've coloured in active at-bat boxes; it shows batters faced per inning:

Here's the same drawing with the scorecard elements removed so you can see the pattern better.

There are six other posts in The Symmetry Series.



mh