Workinonit: David Ortiz

Author of this blog writes plays and has no idea why. Work in progress, David Ortiz is God, includes several monologues by players. This is one, in progress.

David Ortiz, a commanding presence, stands. Slide briefly displays his 2004 stats.

DAVID
I can’t win every game. I can’t get a hit every time we need it. I can’t make the wind blow out or put the right fielder where he won’t catch something fat I smoke right at him. When Manny’s sitting out I can’t stop them from walking me every single time if they want. When Bellhorn or Johnny makes the last out right before I’m up, I can’t do anything. They don’t even let me play the field that often, man. I am designated to hit. I get four, sometimes three, a couple times five chances a game to help us win. Less if it’s too late. I hate losing, man, but I can’t hit no six-run homerun. (beat) If you want to play baseball, you have to learn how to strike out. Learn to take it. If you don’t learn to lose, you lose. (laughs) I didn't mean to sound all Yogi Berra there though.

No Context Necessary #4

Flickr shouldn't be directly stolen from, so please, just look here. And ask yourself, what does "Manny being Manny" really mean?

Halftime. (Almost.)

77 games down, 85 to go, which places us almost at the true midseason point, 9.5 games up, on a 100(.44)-win pace. Good times. And also a good time to check my preseason predictions, which you can find here. I have few/no predictive powers normally, although I'm at least in good shape and not paid to make bad predictions. AND, this year I seem to know what I'm doing so far. Let's look it over.

AAA East

Predicted Winner: Illadelphia.
Current Leader: NY Dodgers-Giants Replacement Franchise.
Teams in exact predicted order: 3/5.

--I didn't think the Mets had the pitching, and if trends continue...they don't. This is a fun three-way pennant chase, and absurd as Jimmy Rollins' prediction seemed when the Phillies started off awful, they may be the most balanced team in the division. This division could go any which way. As for Florida and Washington, only the delusional could pick them anything but 4th-5th.

AAAA Central

Predicted Winner: Houston Colt .45s.
Current Leader: Milwaukee.
Teams in exact predicted order: 1/6.

For the record, I said I had no idea what would happen here, so at least I predicted my awful predictions. What a shitty division this is, and what a fun team the Brewers are to watch. You've gotta love Prince Fielder, infamously mentioned as the player too fat for even Oakland to select in Moneyball, and watching him hit an inside the park HR ranks high on this year's highlights so far. They very well may be a team worth pissing yourself over. And it sure beats the other way of pissing yourself in Milwaukee: getting too drunk on PBR and losing control of everything. Things have improved since I made fun of the city six years ago.

Two predictions I will take pride are the general descent of St. Louis, and my one right pick, the 2nd place Cubs. The guy who started this site before the year even began is still an ass though.

AAAA West

Predicted Winner: Arizona.
Current Leader: San Diego.
Teams in exact predicted order: 0/5.

Not as bad as it looks, since the top three teams are essentially tied for first. Did I call the AAAA East a fun pennant chase? Lookee here. The only thing I'm annoyed about is underrating the Rockies, since I knew the San Francisco/New York/BALCO Giants were gonna suck; I didn't predict suckage of this degree, however, and underestimated the Rox, who very well may have a future. They sure buzzsawed the Sox and Yankees in interleague play.

AL West

Predicted Winner: Los Angeles/Anaheim.
Current Leader: Los Angeles/Anaheim.
Teams in exact order: 2/4.

I blame the Red Sox here, because were it not for the sweep to the Trident, I'd be 4/4 and be a golden god.

AL Central

Predicted Leader: Cleveland.
Current Leader: Detroit.
Teams in exact order: 3/5.

Detroit just overtook Cleveland by a half-game. Minnesota is as middling as I thought, the ChiSox just as far into their collapse. I am a golden demi-god?

AL East

Predicted Leader: Boston.
Current Leader: Boston.
Teams in exact order: 3/5.

I did have the balls to finally predict an end to the Sox's wild card run, a dynasty of regular season defeat, but this is all about the Yankees. No one, especially not Joe Morgan (see 6/26) could have predicted the Yankees' collapse. I predicted that Pavano-Pettite-Mussina couldn't stay healthy (right), that Clemens wasn't coming back (wrong, but considering the 5+ ERA he's sporting right now, esoterically right), and that Hughes wasn't ready this year (TKO), so pitching would hold them down. It has. The offensive collapse? Not predicted. A-Rod becoming the Good Yankee? Definitely not, even if it is essentially a contract year. Project A13 shouldn't shut down just yet though.

Prediction: I will leave the office for happy hour at Barcade....now.

GAME SEVENTY SIX: Hock a Lugo.

Hey Boston, Julio Lugo here. Yeah, of the 0 for...whatever, 30? I stopped counting awhile ago, especially since thinking about it might undo all of the good those anger management courses did for me after I had that thing that I was totally not guilty of. Yeah, I did anger management on my own. That's the kind of guy I am. Anyway, I know that especially after striking out with two outs and the bases loaded yesterday, and my batting average dipping below the Mendoza line, we aren't getting off to the best start, but give me a chance and I know I'll put together some semblence of offense. Probably not enough to make up for my below-average offense, but hey. Brooklyn!



Hey all, Orlando Cabrera here, forever your hero. I'm batting .334 right now for the biggest threat to Boston in the AL. Still love ya.



Hanley Ramirez, yo. Beckett and Lowell are on some shit right now while Anibel Sanchez is on the minor league DL, so I imagine you think you came up alright in the trade. I guess you did. Sure, I'll probably rack up a second .900 OPS season in my second year in the majors and all...and I've got just two home runs less than David Ortiz right now, but...well, you'll find another shortstop next year, right? You always do. Renteria, Alex Gonzalez...those guys sure worked out, eh?



Edgar here. I'm a man of few words, so I'll keep it short. Dear Boston, fuck you all, thanks for the trade. Love, Edgar.



Lugo, don't you take Mario's name in vain. Mario could field.

GAME SEVENTY FIVE: Poot on you.

A brief history of J.J. Putz*

March 25, 1894: Bertram Schmeidel Putzburger arrives at Ellis Island with his wife, Dagma, seeking a better life. An immigration official with a bad sense of humor offers to change his name to Putz to allow for easier assimilation into America, holding back laughter. Chatzekel says the name is pronounced "Poots." Chatzekel can't understand why the immigration officer breaks into uncontrollable laughter.

February 22, 1977: Joseph Jason Putz is born.

October 14, 1982: Tired of calling Joey Pooty Stink Pants, young J.J. gets in his first real fight against kindergarten bully Steve Jenkins. He not only loses the fight, but wets himself; his nickname becomes Pooty Stinky Pee Pants. Angry at the world, J.J. stops playing during recess with his few friends, spending his time throwing rocks at a wall. At home he does roughly the same thing, when he isn't rewatching a VCR recording of the "Thriller" video.

June 4, 1983: Steve Jenkins gets on J.J.'s nerves for the last time; instead of fighting Steve, J.J. throws a rock at him. The rock scars his face. J.J. is Pooty Stinky Pee Pants no more, and Steve becomes Creepy Stevie.

April 1, 1989: Against the Raymond Brothers Hardware Athletics, J.J. throws the first known perfect perfect game, striking out 18 on just 54 pitches, all strikes. Screenwriter Andrew Bergman happens to be in the crowd, watching his nephew Dave flail away along with the other Athletics. Adapting a Roger Angell article into a screenplay, the idea of the perfect perfect game returned to his mind: the nutty pitcher of his screenplay, Steve Nebraska, throws a perfect perfect 9 inning game. The movie sucks. Actually, it sucks and blows.

June 26, 2007: J.J. Putz, a full-blown ace reliever with utterly filthy stuff, finishes off the Red Sox in an 8-7 Mariners win, one of the few pitchers in the game with no runs to his name. His 1.2 IP includes a perfect, 3 strikeout 9th. Future Hall-Of-Famer Manny Ramirez, in to pinch hit, exerts himself so strongly trying to catch up to J.J.'s fastball that he actually shits himself. For the next week around the Red Sox clubhouse, he is known as Manny Manny Poopy Panties.

*No research went into this history; any semblance of fact is wholly accidental.

Delmon Young had a dream.

And now, as promised, something funny. I wrote this for a girl I met once who works here, who claimed Comedy Central connections and told me to write some webisodes. I haven't found her since. Your gain, their loss. And my bank account's loss, I guess. Whatever.

Oh, the inspiration came from a real quote. Guess what.

The Tampa Bay Devil Rays’ clubhouse, pregame. Devil Rays manager JOE MADDON is talking to outfielder DELMON YOUNG, who clutches a bat, angry.

MADDON
It’s just a slump, Delmon.

YOUNG
It’s the most frustrating thing, skip. The swing has been there, you know? I’ve been swinging the bat real good. Hell, if there wasn't nine guys out in the field, I'd have a hit every time. Except when I strike out.

MADDON (amused)
Well yeah, that’s obvious.

YOUNG
How d’you figure?

Beat. Maddon, not sure how to respond, pats Young on the shoulder, walks away.

YOUNG (laying his head back)
Yeah. If it wasn’t for those nine guys I’d have a hit every time. (drifting to sleep) A hit every time…every time…every time…

Cut to the baseball field, inside Delmon Young’s dream; it looks like a baseball game on TV. Young is at the plate against a Toronto Blue Jays pitcher. We hear a radio announcer, and the action unfolds just as he calls it.

ANNOUNCER
Up steps Delmon Young. Here’s the pitch.

Young hits a hard fly ball to center field. Toronto centerfielder VERNON WELLS ranges back.

ANNOUNCER
This one has a chance. Way back! Way back! Wells is at the wall, he might bring this in!

Wells jumps up, but before he can make an amazing catch, he vanishes into thin air. The ball goes over the wall.

ANNOUNCER
Gone! Home run!

Quick montage of at-bats, possibly to “You Got The Touch” from Transformers: The Movie, or something equally awesome yet inspiring song.

1. Young hits a hot ground ball to short. SHORTSTOP dives for the ball, comes up with it, but as he’s about to throw to first, he vanishes; the ball and glove fall to the ground, Young is safe at first.

2. Young bunts down the first base line. Ball is about to go foul, but before the UMPIRE can call it foul, Young waves his arms in the air; UMPIRE vanishes, Young is safe at first.

Music stops. Delmon Young at the plate. His statistics briefly flash on the bottom of the screen: he’s batting 1.000 with 85 home runs and 500 RBIs.

ANNOUNCER
Oh, what a game! Bases juiced, bottom of the 9th, D’Rays down by three, and up steps Delmon Young. Here’s the pitch.

Young barely hits the ball. Rest goes exactly as announcer says.

ANNOUNCER
A weak groundball back to the pitcher, but wait, what’s this? Yes, the pitcher has vanished! The pitcher has dissipated into the moist Tampa Bay air, oh, doctor! One run scores, two runs score, three runs score, and in comes Delmon Young! D’Rays win! D’Rays win!

We hear the crowd chanting M-V-P! M-V-P! as the dream fades. Back to a sleeping Delmon Young in the clubhouse, with Joe Maddon hovering over him.

MADDON
Delmon. Delmon.

YOUNG (mumbling in his sleep)
M-V-P. M-V-P. M-V…

MADDON
Delmon!

Young wakes with a start.

MADDON
It’s game time, Delmon.

Beat.

YOUNG
Scratch me.

Young closes his eyes. Maddon shrugs, erases his name from the lineup card, walks off

YOUNG (closing his eyes)
Batting title, here I come.

End.

GAME SEVENTY FOUR: Weave-boozled.

Jeff Weaver, who brought such delight into my life last start, is probably feeling pretty high today after a nice start against our Somersets (and NOT Pilgrims), Pilgrims making so lame a mascot that some teams hide behind their uniform colors rather than acknowledging that name.)



Anyway, perhaps because he didn't need to relax himself after a road trip, and definitely assisted by one awful inning where our fifth starter actually looked like one, Weaver was solid, throwing more junk than Eddie Harris at us; he may have taken another run or two off his once infinite ERA, even. Consider me a doubter, though. One still sick as a dog, however, and overworked. A funnier post than this when I get home to come.

GAMES SEVENTY ONE-SEVENTY THREE: Sox be chillin', I be illin', old material be stealin'.

A cold I thought yesterday was just a terrible hangover earned from gettin' a little too Sparked is actually a really bad cold, and I'm a little too tapped at work to write too much up, y'all. Shame, because this weekend's series with the Padres, a (cliche alert) possible World Series preview, was a very good series, featuring Daisuke again getting a win the hard way (three walks in the first inning, one run, then nothing more) and Beckett reaching 11 wins by outpitching the scary, scary Jake Peavy...the 3 runs the Sox scored on Peavy are equivalent to 7 against a normal pitcher.



So as to not make today a dark night, as the theater terminology goes, I thought I'd post something off the old blog, in light of my team name reworking from a few days ago. These are the teamnames me and my friend Matthew, currently travelling this great land, came up with for a new football league...there's already an arenafootball2, a minor league of a minor league, so I called this arenafootball3: League of DEATH! Enjoy.

Baltimore Sadness

Lynchburg Genocide

South Texas Hangmen

Boise Potato Famine

Los Angeles Melanomas

Fargo Frozen Corpse

Maine Suicide
(Matthew's imaginary commentator: "And the Suicide shoot themselves in the foot again!)

Detroit Welfare

New Haven Rubble

Seattle Slain

New Jersey Swamp Dragons*

Atlanta Arsonists+

El Paso Border Patrolmen

Montreal Contempt

Tennessee Tribulation Force

Boston Cirrhosis

San Francisco Homosexuals

Montana CarCrash

*Yeah, click that link. Truth is stranger than fiction.
+It really, really is.

Today's dose of obvious.

""It felt like we scored eight or nine runs but they weren't on the board," Yankees manager Joe Torre said. "We had 17 hits. I have no complaints other than the final score."

Off-Day Entertainments: Wholly unrelated.

And now, for no good reason, five excellent song and music video pairings.



That coal miner sure can dance.



When they did this, they did it live backwards...and replayed it...backwards!



A recent addition to my list. This would make a good animated feature unless Disney got his dead and deadly hands on it.



Either you love or hate "Genius of Love," and so it is with the video. I prefer cheaply-drawn animation to the expensive flawless sort.



One of the first music videos of any kind. One of my favorite non-album tracks, too.

GAME SEVENTY: Now give me my money back.

After a Wednesday night game at my house in which my main solace was the short trip home afterwards, in which I took bad beats from (how the fuck could you call the flop with a just a Queen? that wasn't a draw at all) and then just wholly misinterpreted (why would you bet that hard with a good hand?) the play of my friend Patrick, it was around midnight, I was wired, not drunk enough and with no desire to finish off the remaining beer (who brought Blueberry Ale?), and thoroughly steamed. There are cures for this mind state; last night, opening up the Sox-Braves recap was one.



Coco Crisp has himself confused with Jimmy Rollins as of late, and I hope he never remembers his own identity if this power surge can continue. Staked to a 5-0 lead before his first pitch, Julian Tavarez pitched his best game of the year, seven innings of shutout ball, giving up just three hits. The Braves put up all the resistance of a plate of nachos, the Yankees continued to validate Colorado and the Sox's recent problems with them, while also bumping up the number to Bo Derek. Soon thereafter, I fell asleep at last.



Today, I'm tired and a few dollars lighter, but at least some millionaires I'll never get to know made me feel briefly better by beating other millionaires. Unfortunately, this is a off-day. Leaving me way too much time to think about those fucking Queens. Now who wants to buy me lunch?

Don't forget the "act like every pitch on the inside half nearly hit you" play.

A bit from Bad Altitude, the Rockies' arm of the Baseball Toaster juggernaut:

"The captain made a couple of those specialty Jeter plays where he flinches immediately when the ball is hit, stands absolutely still for a moment, then dives heedlessly in the general direction of where the ball passed several seconds ago. Jeter is awesome at this play. He is better at making it look like he almost got to balls he completely misread and missed than anybody else in the game today."

Don't forget the "jump unnecessarily while making a throw" play. And the "do the fist pump after premature ejaculation with unsatisfying starlet of the moment, wishing he could only make love to a second self."

FYI: Schilling's shoulder.

If you've got a few bucks to spare and love baseball, Baseball Prospectus is worth the investment; the annual $35 subscription will change the way you see baseball, and I'm not even a stathead. And having given that promotion...one of the non-statistical reasons is Will Carroll's Under The Knife column, the best injury news available anywhere; with the Schilling story, I thought some people might want some stolen content. Carroll on Schilling:

After a start that was as bad looking as they come--full of altered mechanics and reduced velocity--Schilling was sent back to Boston for an MRI on his pitching shoulder. Terry Francona was a bit circumspect in his comments regarding Schilling, saying only that he "had trouble getting loose." Sources have been equally opaque, which is not often a sign of whether something is good or bad, but just that it's being taken seriously enough to visibly tighten the circle around information. Early reports from the Boston Herald say that the MRI found no damage, but Schilling's top reading on his last start was in the high 80s and the ball didn't seem to have its normal movement, making us wonder whether reduced velocity might affect his ability to muddle through. It won't be until his bullpen session--normally today, but likely to be delayed--that we learn more. Schilling does have a history of shoulder problems, but it's a relatively ancient one. His labrum was repaired back in 1995 and, stunningly, he returned to form. It's important to note that while the pitch counts of his near no-hitter and the subsequent outings were not high, it makes me wonder if he pitched on adrenaline late in games, throwing harder than he should have relative to his fatigue level when he came so close to history.

Forgot about how fucked up Schilling's shoulder was in 1995. Apropos of nothing, let's remember 1995 with one of my favorite recently-passed bands, Luna. That'll pass a few more minutes of my work day...41 minutes to go.

GAME SIXTY NINE: Cowboy and Indians.

The Texan with the big curveball was doing his thing, and probably coulda kept doing it for another couple innings when the rain came down, the rain came down-down, and when it stopped, the bullpen held the zero in place. Never trust a cowboy amongst [Indian Team Name Franchises]. Beckett even smacked an RBI double to finish his veritable Custer's Revenge on they asses. It wasn't on TBS for some reason, but I GameCast my way through it, and it was fun.



Coco Crisp made the greatest catch ever again, according to Beckett. (My call: not as good as this one.) I shoulda mentioned his weird power surge yesterday, especially since I still want Crisp to thrive as a Sox, and as one of the best defensive centerfielders in baseball, he has a lot more value than people think even when he's struggling. I heard he's batting .350 over his last few games, though. That's also worthwhile.



After tonight's rubber match, it's off to where the pets go for a series with the San Diego Celibates; the West Coast trip concludes in Seattle, where Beckett will be back to take down the Seattle Poseidons. When hopefully I'll have recovered from the spell of Gregg Easterbrook-like team renaming syndrome I'm suffering. No word yet on if the team will continue to the Dulles afterwards.

No seriously, Mo Vaughn really is my hero.