Archives › Craig Calcaterra
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Jimmy Rollins is a daddy now. His wife gave birth to their first baby on Sunday. Congrats, Jimmy! And say goodbye to sleeping late, ever. On the bright side, when your daughter is eight years-old she will constantly tell you how lame you are and ask you what life was like in “the olden days.”…
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Man, sometimes it’s like people don’t want to throw chum in the water and make life easy for hater bloggers like me. From Brookover’s latest: Harper also showed some reverence toward the city and also displayed a keen sense of Philadelphia’s sports history by naming some old-time stars. He named this city as one of…
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Why, this is improbable. Reds fan Caleb Lloyd caught two home run balls last night. On back-to-back homers: The 20-year-old junior from Thomas More College was in left field when Reds pitcher Mike Leake hit his first career homer in the fourth inning. The ball went directly to Lloyd, who had never caught a ball at a…
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David Ortiz doesn’t give a [expletive] about what you think makes a leader
May 22, 2012, 10:30 AM EDT
David Ortiz has, what I think anyway, is some righteous anger. It came out last night after the Sox beat the Orioles, and it came in response to reports that he called a closed-door meeting a couple of weeks ago in which the hitters yelled at the pitchers. Since that meeting, by the way, the…
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I mentioned this in the recaps, but this is worth its own post: Giancarlo Stanton’s homer off Jamie Moyer last night was something to behold. For a couple of reasons. First, it was a freaking shotgun blast. It left the bat at 122.4 miles per hour according to ESPN’s home run stats thingy. That’s the…
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Henry Rodriguez continues to not get it done as the Nationals closer. Last night he came into the game to lock down a 2-0 lead in the ninth. Then he walked a guy, gave up a single and uncorked two wild pitches. The dude he walked came around to score and Sean Burnett had to,…
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“What would George Steinbrenner do?” What a ridiculous question
May 22, 2012, 8:47 AM EDT
There’s no sense in sugarcoating it. The Yankees are playing terrible baseball right now. They have lost seven of ten and the offense is in the crapper. Of course it’s early yet, and unless you believe that the Orioles are going to continue to win one-run games all the time and put up big offensive…
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If you’ve been around here a while, you may have observed that our friend and Commenter Emeritus Old Gator has a few opinions. Well, you’re not the only one. Sarah Bunting of Tomato Nation noticed too, and interviewed OG. He obviously talks about the Marlins, but he also talks about New York things, a chance…
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Marlins 7, Rockies 4: Jamie Moyer pitched in his 50th different major league park. But he may have given up his longest most hellacious homer ever. Giancarlo Stanton hit a grand slam that went 438 feet in basically a straight line and broke the friggin’ scoreboard. Roy Hobbs stuff, there. Gave the Marlins the lead and,…
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Drew Sutton doesn’t really occupy of space in the baseball universe these days. He hasn’t played in the majors this year. But he has seen a lot of action. On the transaction wire: The Tampa Bay Rays have acquired infielder Drew Sutton from Pittsburgh, just one day after the Pirates made a trade to get…
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Concussions have robbed Roberts of the last two years of his career. Indeed, it’s been over a year since Brian Roberts played baseball, but he is slowly coming back. Today, however, he suggested that he’s soon to begin a minor league rehab assignment. That would be good news if true. And even if it takes…
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I haven’t been following too closely, but I’m pretty sure Mark Teixeira has 19th-century-style consumption. Like, he was coughing blood into a frilly handkerchief when it was discovered by his chambermaid who ran down the hall exclaiming “the master has taken ill!” But seriously, whatever has caused his inflamed airways, it’s been bad and has caused…
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And now a story of a drunk man wearing chef’s pants on the G-train in New York last night, hitting on young women rather unsuccessfully, hinting that he played in Fenway before, used to live in Minnesota and was named Chuck: When we got off the train Tara decided to google “baseball minnesota chuck yankee”…
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Tiffany and I talk about a few of the larger items floating around MLB today. Oh, and I hock a fake loogie at her too.
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Baseball is Dead Alert! From MLB’s press office: Major League Baseball recorded the highest-attended pre-Memorial Day weekend in history by drawing 1,652,935 fans for this weekend’s 45 games, it was announced today. The total this weekend, which featured the first 42 Interleague games of the season, eclipsed the previous mark of 1,640,976 (May 19th-21st, 2006)…
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Missed this over the weekend, but Pat the Bat said goodbye to Philadelphia on Saturday, throwing out the first pitch a day after officially retiring. CSNPhilly.com has a nice story about his farewell. Burrell was clearly appreciative of the honor. And even got misty when he saw the granddaughters of the late John Vukovich there…
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Youngins won’t remember this, but on this day in 1992 the California Angels’ team bus was involved in a nasty crash. They were on their way to the airport on their offday following a series against the Yankees in New York when it overturned on the New Jersey Turnpike. Chris Jaffe has a column up…
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Reader D — that’s how he signed the email anyway — alerts us to a fine piece of American history up for auction. A baseball bat. And not just any baseball bat: … a 25-inch ornately detailed bat with gold-leafed vines wrapped around the mid-barrel portion meeting a silver metal scroll at the handle. On…
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MLB dropping the white Memorial Day/Fourth of July caps, going with camouflage logos
May 21, 2012, 12:31 PM EDT
The past couple of years MLB has put their players in white caps with red white and blue logos on them for Memorial Day, Fourth of July and September 11th. This year they’re doing something different: normally-colored caps, but the logo has a camouflage logo in it. You can see them here. I’m not sure…
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There are a lot of ways for careers to end, but if Jesse Litsch‘s career ends this way, it will be simply awful. Back in March, Litsch was shut down due to some shoulder soreness. During his down time, he was given an anti-inflammatory injection in the area of the pain. That got infected, however, and…
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Dmitri Young sold his baseball card collection for $2.5 million
May 21, 2012, 11:00 AM EDT
There are about six things awesome about this story, but suffice it to say that the fact that Dmitri Young had a kickass baseball card collection is the awesomest. Now it’s gone, he got $2.5 million for it, and he’s using a portion of that for charity. Not so awesome: a reminder that Robert Fick…
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Sam Miller of Baseball Prospectus has put together a guide to on-field F-bombs. Something of a taxonomy, actually, categorizing the different ways in which said bombs are thrown. Example: If you stand in the umpire’s face and yell “F***. S***” you’ll get ejected. If you walk away and say it just loud enough to be…
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What the what?! Mark Ellis was a few hours from having his leg amputated
May 21, 2012, 10:00 AM EDT
Dodgers second baseman Mark Ellis had to undergo an emergency fasciotomy Saturday to relieve pressure in his left leg after suffering an injury while turning one at the bag on Friday night. He’ll miss several weeks, and that’s not good, but get this: Mattingly said LAD doctor told him that if they had waited another 4-5…
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More violence in the Dodger Stadium parking lot. This wasn’t a fandom-motivated thing like Bryan Stow, but still, dude: A man was dragged out of his car and beaten outside Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles on Sunday night after apparently causing a minor collision, KABC-TV reported. The victim suffered non-life-threatening head and facial injuries in…
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The Phillies are accused of secrecy regarding Ryan Howard; Ruben Amaro plays defense
May 21, 2012, 9:13 AM EDT
There were two interesting articles in yesterday’s Philadelphia Inquirer: Bob Brookover reported how he was removed from Bright House Field in Clearwater last week while trying to cover Ryan Howard‘s rehab; and Frank Fitzpatrick questioned the Phillies’ giving Howard a cortisone shot in September and quotes medical experts who suggest that the shot could have contributed to…
