The Official Site of The Atlanta Braves: News: Braves rally late, but fall to Mets in 10
I’m sure that the Mets fans are gloating over beating a Braves team that included three regulars (Escobar, Johnson, and Diaz, if you count Diaz as a regular). Jordan Schafer played the whole game in center and had two hits. Not that it matters.
Someone mentioned Alyssa Milano cursing out loud on the last thread. Without getting too off-color, I’m fully in favor of that mental image.
The bigger news of the day is the Braves not offering Francouer a multiyear deal. His contract was renewed and he’ll be eligible for arbitration at the end of the season.
I wonder what kind of numbers are being thrown around. I think he should get the same contract as Heap. At least Frenchy didn’t mouth off like Prince Fielder.
Totally off topic…
My big news of the day: Madonna won’t be performing at her Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony this week.
Who cares, right? Well guess who will be performing 2 Madonna songs at the event instead?
Iggy & The Stooges, of course.
Those Michigan people sure stick together in the weirdest ways.
Oh man, that’ll be weird to see.
#3
Oh man, they’ve GOT to do that song from Evita. I do believe that seeing the Stooges’ treatment of Andrew Lloyd Webber would be the highlight of my life.
Somebody call Will Oh man….
From a very reliable source, I’m told the songs be “Burning Up” and (I swear) “Ray of Light.”
They should do “Like a Virgin”.
madonna in the r&r hall of fame?? whats next? barry manilow??( or is he already in)?
damn………they’re sure casting the net wide these days. i guess thats what happens after a few years. you feel like you have to induct SOMEBODY. selling a few billion cd’s still doesnt make it rock n roll.but if iggy is still alive, i guess he should get to do whatever he wants……………. anyway, my small point is that baseball should stop feeling like they have to fill space at the hall and save it for the best of the best. they’ve made a few serious mistakes but that doesn’t mean they have to repeat them.
and the rock & roll hall has already cheapened itself to the point that it doesn’t mean anything to anyone except the cleveland chamber of commerce. take a lesson cooperstown.
Interesting article from our second sacker…
http://atlanta.braves.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20080303&content_id=2402115&vkey=spt2008news&fext=.jsp&c_id=atl
Yeah, The Stooges should play “Like a Virgin,” except have Iggy writhe around in broken glass.
There saying that Frenchy is wanting a 6yr/55mil deal, like what David Wright received. I’m thinking that’s a little much at this point. I could see a 6yr/42 offer, but thats only after we dont resign Tex next offseason. There wont be anything too surprising until a decision on him is made
interesting note, never heard of this kid…
Over the past week, Tyler Flowers has been wowing Braves manager Bobby Cox and members of the coaching staff with his bat. Flowers has visions of being a catcher at the Major League level. But with Brian McCann in place, he’d likely accept the opportunity to play in the Majors with the hometown boys at first base.
While battling a sore knee last year, Flowers spent some time at first base with Class A Rome. There’s a chance he could be promoted to serve as Double-A Mississippi’s catcher this year. But if Teixeira departs and the Braves are looking for a first baseman, Flowers will likely be a candidate.
Flowers, a 22-year-old who stands 6-foot-4 and weighs approximately 230 pounds, hit .298 with 12 homers and a .488 slugging percentage last year.
#1
AAR – that was me and I am also for any image of Alyssa Milano.
But she will be cursing a lot this year since she’s a Dodger fan and Andruw’s offense is now her problem.
Reds just signed Corey Patterson to a minor league deal. HMMM, it would’ve made sense for us to do that and keep Devine around wouldnt it…I really think between Jones, Schafer, Blanco, Anderson, Hernandez, and Patterson, that someone would step up and be useful for us
Just out of curiosity, did anyone watch Deal or No Deal tonight? Their first contestant was a guy named Garrett Smith, who wanted the money to try to accomplish his dream of being the Braves’ catcher.
During the game, the Banker actually brought offered him a game with the Braves and broght them out. Of course, they were a Little League team.
He made a deal for $107,000, but he actually had the million dollar case.
If the Stooges play Madonna, I really hope Ron Asheton leaves his swastika band at home.
The Asheton brothers’ reputation for being dumb as bricks came honestly.
No, I watched a re-run of the deciding ALCS Game 5 from 1976—KC & the Yanks, the Chambliss home-run game.
And I’m reminded what an awful baseball announcer Howard Cosell was. The moment Chambliss hits the HR, his ego won’t leave the moment alone. He steps all over Keith Jackson’s homerun call (talk about weird baseball announcers) and begins to pontificate. He really ruins it.
I enjoyed Howard on Monday Night Football when I was a kid because the game was more of a show with him, Gifford & Meredith. But baseball? Not his sport.
csg, I think Patterson only accepted the minor league deal because his old pal Dusty Baker assured him that he would make the team, they just didn’t want to put him in the 40 man, but you’re point is certainly well taken. Certainly count me among the people that thinking keeping Devine and signing Patterson for similar $$ would have been a better move. I’d be willing to bet that if Wren was honest and knew Patterson was still going to be around this late, he would say that he wouldn’t have traded for Kotsay.
AAR,
I’ve heard Asheton “explain” that story, but it hardly matters.
I love the music—“Fun House” is one of my all-time faves—but I’ve never been comfortable with any of that imagery in the punk scene.
And don’t forget the Londoners. Sid Vicious & Siouxie Sioux adopted that look, too. Yes, it was shock value, but a cheap & stupid move, for sure.
#20 – I would’ve liked to have seen it. What’s more alarming is the fact that we had two former #1 picks traded for nothing. McBride and Devine were both first rounders. Should this be blamed on our organization not doing a good job of scouting or them rushing these guys too quickly?
I blame the entire London punk fashion scene on Malcolm McLaren’s belief that anything New Yorkers did first, he could sell abroad. If Siouxsie and Sid did it, I’m sure they didn’t think of it on their own.
As to Asheton, it’s something I certainly don’t excuse, but it also doesn’t really bother me either. Basically, as far as I can tell, he’s just really, really dumb. Pretty great guitar player, though.
And, yeah, it’s hard to imagine life without Fun House. I’m glad I don’t have to.
Peanut excerpt:
But of course, when I said that, I still hadn’t seen this young phenom. When I initially saw him, I noticed the way he was strutting during his first few days in a big league clubhouse. Then after watching him truly walk the walk with the way he plays on the field, I decided that strut was actually just the confident stroll performed only by the most special of prospects.
Insert your joke here…
(That was about Jordan Schaffer)
That stuff never sat well with me either. Growing up in the Deep South there were too many folks that used that imagery in a non-ironic manner, if you know what I’m saying.
Love some Stooges, though. An aptly named band if there ever was one.
“Boxing’s been good to me, Howard”
Any team that signs Corey Patterson immediately becomes worse. I’d rather have Kotsay, and I don’t want Kotsay.
Okay, I am listening to 790 the fan on the way in and all they talk about in yesterdays game was the impressive outing by Jo-Jo reyes. So I look at the box score-what was so impressive about that (2 innings; 2 hits; 1 ER; 1 strike-out)? Is there someone in the media with an itch to get him a job as a starter with the Braves?
#28: My thoughts exactly.
ububba;
Why isn’t Neil Diamond in the R&R HOF?
Or failing that, Alyssa Milano?
Go Braves!
@2,
Prince Fielder had a much better year than Francouer.
@19,
Yeah, Ububba, Howard was pretty bad at baseball because he never understood or appreciated the flow of the game. He was very critical about how boring baseball was–until ABC got baseball and all of a sudden he was doing it. It’s typical of the way networks operate–they didn’t think that baseball could sell itself so they tried to replicate Monday Night Football even though it was a completely different dynamic. I remember the Chambliss call–and Cosell had started yelling before the ball actually went out–and it barely got over the fence. If it had been caught, that would have been an all-time faux pas.
But, even though I’m not a big boxing fan, Cosell was really a great boxing announcer.
It looks like I was wrong with thinking the Kotsay deal was okay. If Patterson could have been had for less than Kotsay, and we could have kept Devine, that would obviously have been the better course. I had just assumed Patterson had priced himself out of the Braves.
So I would have made the same mistake Wren made, but it’s still an error. One that cost us Devine.
While we’re on the subject of Howard, I highly recommend Dave Kindred’s book “Sound and Fury,” a double biography of Howard Cosell and Muhammad Ali. It’s one of the best sports bios I’ve ever read, and does a wonderful job of getting into the man inside the bluster for both of them, who had more similarities than you might think at first glance: both minorities, both supremely externally confident, both internally opaque, both smart but probably not as smart as they thought they were, both absolutely unique talents the likes of which we’ll never see again.
I understand that Devine had a lot of potential, but Cox never played him, did he? What’s the point of keeping him if the Braves won’t use him? It sure hasn’t worked out for Brayan Pena.
Speaking of boxing, I highly recommend the Joe Louis special on HBO Sports. HBO did an excellent job with the historical narrative, guest interviews, and in the ring video footage.
The Rafael Marquez vs. Israel Vazquez fight (#3) was also outstanding. They should go ahead and lock up the fourth fight. When these two gesquare off you are guaranteed an excellent show.
32 – I think that Scott Boreass is Patterson’s agent and at the time he was saying that he was going to get a multi-year deal. That alone probably took him out of the running
Brett Farve done?
http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2008/03/reports-qb-bret.html
Hate King,
That HBO Joe Louis special was outstanding. They had interviews with everyone, from Berry Gordy to Jimmy Carter. In fact, Carter’s story about listening to the Schmelling fight with his family’s share croppers was amazing.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/03/04/SP9KVCRF4.DTL
Bobby Crosby has back pain? What does this have to do with the Braves? Look lower…
“In other A’s back news, reliever Joey Devine did some flat-ground throwing Monday. Devine also has been sidelined by back spasms and has a tear of the L5-S1 vertebrae, the same one that Chavez had repaired. ”
I’ve been trying to figure out why he hadn’t pitched any in spring training, and this is why.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/03/04/SP9KVCRF4.DTL
Bobby Crosby has back pain? What does this have to do with anything? Look lower…
“In other A’s back news, reliever Joey Devine did some flat-ground throwing Monday. Devine also has been sidelined by back spasms and has a tear of the L5-S1 vertebrae, the same one that Chavez had repaired. ”
I’ve been trying to figure out why he hadn’t pitched any in spring training, and this is why.
I didn’t see the special but I read a book on the Schmelling-Louis fight and it was great. It’s amazing how much things have changed in this country, mostly for the better.
Testing testing, 1, 2, 3
…mostly for the better.
That’s certainly arguable.
#37
People might debate that he’s about 4 years late
Uh-oh… DOB on Soriano:
“He hasn’t pitched yet and we’ve been told several times that a stomach ailment of some sort has been the problem. True that, but he’s also got some inflammation in his pitching elbow, or slightly above it where the triceps connects to the elbow.”
First Chipper Jones. Now maybe Soriano.
Has Smoltz pitched in a spring training game at all yet?
It’s probably nothing, but how much confidence does closer Peter Moylan inspire?
#43 – more than Kolb, Ray, or Reitsma did
@40,
Stu, I was referring to racial relations. Are you going to argue that things are not better today than in 1937?
This is getting dangerously close to politics, but it’s hard to see what isn’t better today than in 1937, unless you think that the Depression was cool.
The Louis/Schmeling bout certainly reeked of politics.
The HBO special did a great job explaining all its societal implications & how it actually began to change some attitudes.
The essence of the show, however, was to show how the Greatest American Sports hero fell so far because he got hosed by the IRS.
(Schmeling, incidentally, fought for Germany in WW2 & eventually became a millionaire because he landed a Coca-Cola distributorship in Germany.)
The Depression? We got some good art from it, but that’s about it.
Well, men routinely wore hats back then. That was pretty cool.
And pitchers pitched nine innnings in those days when men were men.
Damn straight.
A great baseball book looking back on that era: “When the Grass Was Real” by Donald Honig.
It’s collection of stories on individual players from that era (Gehringer, Mize, Feller, Cool Papa Bell, Pete Reiser, Billy Herman, etc.). Each gets a chapter.
Pitchers like Lefty Grove & Ted Lyons tell stories of how they’d tear the clubhouse apart if they blew a game in the late-innings. They’d always begin those stories with, “We had them beat 2-1 in the 8th…”
Back then, if you were in the bullpen, you were in exile.
Stu, I was referring to racial relations. Are you going to argue that things are not better today than in 1937?
Concerning racial relations, of course not.
I would absolutely argue with Mac’s subsequent contention, but that’s not a permissible tangent, so I won’t go there.
@50,
This is much later than the Honig book, but there is the classic 1963 game when Warren Sphan (at the age, I believe, of 42 or 43) pitched 16 innings against Juan Marichal and lost on a home run. Can you imagine someone pitching 16 innings today?
IMHO, the growth of bullpens has had a seriously negative effect on baseball. I blame Tony LaRussa. Even if it’s not all his fault, it’s fun to blame him.
The Hardball Times suggests that the Braves would benefit a lot from signing Bonds, assuming he stays out of jail. Maybe, but no way that they would take on this kind of distraction.
http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/who-should-sign-barry-bonds/
“And pitchers pitched nine innnings in those days when men were men.”
Seriously.
Starting pitchers get paid more and more to pitch less and less.
JoJo Reyes looks stupid when he pitches.
@54,
In fairness, I think it’s more difficult to pitch today than in the past for a number of reasons: (1) the lower mound (post-1968); smaller strike zones; (3) stronger hitters (for whatever reason); (4) smaller parks; and (4) in the AL, the DH.
It’s just generally a more offensive-oriented game with better hitters. This has to effect the number of innings that pitchers pitch. Someone like Mark Belanger, who was a truly terrible hitter with no power at all, could never play regularly today no matter how good a fielder he was.
I smell popcorn
Marc,
Oh, yeah. There’s a bunch of those guys—Bud Harrelson, Ray Oyler, Tom Veryzer…
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/03/04/SP9KVCRF4.DTL
Devine has back spasms and an injury to a vertebrae, I think.
I was trying to figure out why he hadn’t pitched this spring, and this is why.
#55 – Hampton looks worse and who knows where Huddy is looking when he’s throwing. Find picks of those two
I’m pretty sure I had two or three pictures of Hampton throwing like a girl in the last video.