All Star Game musings

Meant to post this sooner, but here are some thoughts I had on last night's game:

  • How does one city go from having Meatloaf sing the National Anthem at an All-Star Game to Carrie Underwood just 12 years later? I was only 9 when I was at the last game and I still remember the Loaf's anthem.
  • The huge ovations for Freddy and Jay Bay were awesome to see during introductions. It obviously meant a ton to them to be there for this and they deserve it.
  • Somehow the Pirate fans at the game got the memo that A-Rod and Jeter are supposed to be booed, but they missed the one about Tracy deserving the same treatment. For shame.
  • I still enjoy looking out my window and seeing the Goodyear blimp circling the city.
  • All of the Roberto tributes were great, from Ozzie Guilllen's "Chasing 3000" shirt, to the RCW sweatbands, to the award ceremony. One small complaint, I wish they had Lanny or Greg Brown MC the ceremony instead of Selig. They both take a lot of crap online, but a hometown feel would've made the award presentation that much better, I think (especially if they'd chosen Greg Brown, who grew up as a Pirate fan in Pittsburgh during the Clemente era). Selig stumbling over his words and saying "a relief mission to Nicawagwa" was just painful to watch. Still, if they don't retire #21 leaguewide (and despite all of my biases, I'm not really convinced that they should... which is a different topic) I thought last night was a fitting tribute to a great man.
  • Given the immense pressure on them last night, I thought Bay and Freddy preformed pretty well. Freddy sparkled with the glove at short and second and Bay managed to get a hit on a night where they were pretty rare (for an All-Star Game).
  • As for the game itself, well, it was pretty boring. I think Brad Penny probably liquified his elbow in the first two innings, and (though this joke has been made a million times today) who was surprised to see the NL blow a late lead to eventually lose by 1 run as the home team at PNC?

Popular posts from this blog

WHYGAVS has moved

It's official. WHYGAVS now has a new official home. It's actually at WHYGAVS.com , which means that it's the same as the old home, but I'm off Blogger now, which means that this old link won't redirect. You'll have to subscribe to a new feed if that's how you read WHYGAVS, but beyond that things are going to be mostly the same.
Read more

Links

For reasons that will become shortly apparent, I've been working on cleaning/updating the sidebar links. That means that I've got some new links to add to the sidebar, as well as some other things for your general perusal. Cory Humes, Geeves, and Alan from Bucco Wire are all blogging again at MVN under the header Pirate Revolution . There's also The Green Weenie and The 'Burgh Blues , two blogs I should've added some time ago. Meanwhile, Dejan's series about the Pirates' presence in the Dominican is awesome. I'm sure most of you have been checking it out as it's been published, but if you haven't I can't recommend parts one , two , and three , Renee Gayo's list of the top 5 prospects yet to play in America , and everything else that DK's put on his blog on the subject enough. It's an awesome look in to the Bucs' international operation and how things have changed since Bob Nutting took the lack of Pirate presence in the reg...
Read more

The Pirates are talking to Mark Loretta

There are a couple of possible reactions when reading that the Pirates are talking to Mark Loretta . The easy reaction is, "Well, so long as he's replacing Chris Gomez, I'm fine with that." That's true. Loretta's a useful utility infielder that can still handle a bat fairly well and can play just about every position in the infield in a short-term capacity. In fact, he's probably a better hitter than Gomez and he can't really be a worse fielder. That may make him more the successor to Doug Mientkiewicz, which is fine by me as well. But then I started thinking. Aren't we trying to trade our shortstop away? Isn't "successor to Jack Wilson" a position that needs filled on the depth chart at the moment? I mean, I know Huntington's not looking at Loretta as a starting shortstop next year ... but what if he is? This is how the offseason drives people crazy. You can go months and months without hearing any rumors, then as soon as rumor...
Read more