Baseball is dull only to dull minds
The Opening Week is coming to an end, and all teams have graced their ballparks for at least once. This is particularly poignant for the Boston Red Sox as it’s their 100th year of baseball at the iconic Fenway Park.
On the subject of ballparks, I am being introduced to them as I watch teams play. My favourite part of seeing a new ballpark is the wall situated behind the home plate. So far, my favourites have been the aquarium in the new Marlins Park and the fantastic stone cladding at Coors Field. The wall really does remind me of playing in the street as a young child. I keep imagining an irate neighbour peering over the wall and shouting at the Rockies to “play up their own end”. Maybe it’s just me?
This week marked the MLB debut of highly hyped Japanese pitcher, Yu Darvish. Darvish has signed for the already strong Texas Rangers and will be an asset throughout the season but his debut wasn’t stellar by any means. Darvish played for the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters in Japan and my mind is in overdrive over the possibilities for their wall behind the home plate at their home, the Sapporo Dome….
With afternoon starts for the Tampa Bay Rays, I’ve been able to watch quite a bit of them against the Detroit Tigers and the Boston Red Sox. I’ve been impressed by Carlos Peña and his hitting. His on-base plus slugging percentage (OPS) is 1.356 and he has 3 home runs, 8 RBI’s and 10 hits already. However, the Rays have struggled against the strong looking Detroit Tigers after sweeping the Yankees. A 4-2 victory, all scored in the 9th inning, has been the only solace sandwiched between 5-2 and 7-2 defeats at Comerica Park. The latest series with the Red Sox has got off to a disasterous start due to a 12-2 mauling. Pitcher David Price’s awful decision making was only rivalled by Marlins manager Ozzie Guillén.
Guillén managed to put the Marlins in the news with a misplaced praising for Cuban president Fidel Castro. Basically, anyone not on Castro’s Christmas Card list was irked by the comments and earned Guillén a five game suspension and a huge serving of humble pie. He’s already been in trouble over comments in the past about homosexuality, imigration and has managed to upset the White House after the Chicago White Sox’s World Series victory in 2005. I imagine that the White Sox management, where Guillén was previously employed, were having a chuckle or two this week.
Jack Roosevelt Robinson died 2 months before I was born but Sunday (15th April) is his, and any non-white player’s, day in baseball. Jackie Robinson Day marks the day, in 1947, when Jackie played for the Brooklyn Dodgers and started to turn back racial segregation in baseball. I think that it’s a great mark for a sport to recognize such an unwelcome barrier and wish that British sports celebrated such landmarks. Discrimination of any kind has no place in sport (or anywhere else) so well done to the MLB!
I am now getting daily emails from MLBDepthCharts.com on all types of analysis and statistics, and even went to Staples to get one report bound this week. It’s official, I’m hooked on baseball! It only took 6 games of the Regular Season too.
