On Friday, Travis D’Arnaud led the Mets to victory over San Diego.
On Saturday, Adam Jones had 5 RBIs and 2 steals, the first since 2005 to do so.
And on Sunday, Jon Lester pitched 8 shutout innings, striking out 8 and giving up just 4 hits in the Red Sox win.
Standings, as always, after the jump (also, note I added one for Mike Trout due to him being the MVP of the ASG):
A new link now on the Continuum: “Just A Bit Outside”. From Fox Sports, it’s a site somewhat in the vein of Grantland, Sports On Earth, or SI’s MMQB site, only unlike those, this one only focuses on baseball. Already it has some neat stories up, so check it out.
Here are some things from the past week that could make for some good reading if you have time:
First off, a long read on Tom Emanski and his baseball videos (and the endless commercials that stemmed from them) from Erik Malinowski.
The ever-great Joe Posnanski on Glen Perkins and his appearance in the All-Star Game.
An excellently written but extremely distubring story by Greg Hanlon on Mel Hall, professional ballplayer and pedophilic sexual predator. Needless to say… it’s not a happy story. Like… at all.
The Midseason GIF Awards.
And, of course, my look at Mr. Go.
Note: This post was being written/outlined before Sully Baseball’s excellent video went up. Make sure to check that out- he does most of what I say in here.
As everybody and their brother said during the All-Star Game, Tony Gwynn really should have gotten a tribute. And, well, he didn’t, apparently because MLB didn’t want to make it about “any one person” (never mind that the entire game coverage was about Jeter and only a few years ago they did tributes to George Steinbrenner). So, everybody said, why not an Oscars-style “In Memoriam” segment, perhaps in the fifth inning?
I agree. Every year at the ASG, baseball should pay tribute to those it has lost since the last ASG with a Memoriam video of between two and four minutes, depending on how much of a bummer the year has been. It would feature (with examples of the types of people next to it):
As for what music that could accompany it? Well, I’m sure a good orchestral score would work well, but want to know what else would work? The most melancholy and nostalgic of all baseball songs: Frank Sinatra’s “There Used To Be A Ballpark”.
Do it, MLB. Make it classy, and it could become an indelible part of the midsummer classic.
In Bizarre Baseball Culture, I take a look at some of the more unusual places where baseball has reared it’s head in pop culture and fiction.
Oh boy.
I have covered many strange things on Bizarre Baseball Culture over time. There was the story about baseball in 2044, there was the Pokémon episode, the comic where the hero basically uses PEDs, the comic where Billy The Marlin and Spider-Man had to save Jeff Conine from Doctor Doom, and, of course, all of those “Ultimate Sports Force” comics. But perhaps none can compare to the 2013 Korean/Chinese epic that is… Mr. Go.
Yes, Mr. Go. A film much beloved by people throughout the baseball internet for the sheer curiosity factor of those blog posts at places like Big League Stew last year, but rarely actually seen by it. I, however, was able to procure a copy of the film, in the form of a DVD from Hong Kong, acquired from a Canadian seller on eBay. All for you, the readership of the Baseball Continuum (and anybody who found this link).
So, buckle up, because below the jump, we dive deep on Mr. Go. Prepare yourself, because gorilla baseball, MLB cameos, banana-shaped thunderstix, pizza commercials, a bullpen-cart chase and other madness awaits you:
The latest Bizarre Baseball Culture will be up soon, but until then, here’s a little preview:
…Don’t miss it.
Tomorrow: A New BIZARRE BASEBALL CULTURE! Plus, a reposting of a classic Baseball Continuum post.
1. That was an enjoyable All-Star Game. Not all of them are. Some of them are slogs that you just want to end so that people can stop complaining about it and where it’s obvious at least some of the players who have left the game have also left the stadium to get a flight back to their hometown or their usual team. But this year, it seemed like everybody was actually enjoying themselves.
2. Okay, there were a few blots. The whole controversy over Adam Wainwright grooving a ball for Derek Jeter, for example, which could all be avoided if the whole home-field advantage thing was dropped (it’s believed Chan-Ho Park did something similar for Ripken in 2001, but there wasn’t home-field at stake then, so nobody cared). And, of course, there was the fact that they went the entire broadcast and not once mentioned Tony Gwynn, apparently having kept all the tributes to him in the pre-game on Fox Sports 1, which nobody was watching. I feel like MLB should have some sort of “In Memoriam” montage in the 4th or 5th inning of every All-Star Game, personally. But that doesn’t happen, so it falls to the announcers to pay tribute, and it’s sad that the passing of a man who was a fixture of the All-Star Game for years didn’t get even a mention.
3. As for the game’s theme? Well, it seems like La Opinion in Los Angeles summed it up:
Derek Jeter is leaving. It’s going to be Mike Trout’s league. He deserved the MVP last night, much like he deserved the last two AL MVPs that he didn’t get and will probably deserve the AL MVP he’ll get this year barring injury or some other unforeseen circumstance. He’s going to be the Face of Baseball, the most common ballplayer in commercials (such as the ones for Subway and Major League Baseball itself that he is in now), the ballplayer even people who never watch baseball will be able to name. It was going to happen anyway (especially if Bryce Harper doesn’t pick up the slack) but last night confirmed it.
4. It was nice that Glen Perkins and Kurt Suzuki, the two Minnesota Twins in the game, got to have a spotlight in the 9th as Perkins came in to close in front of his home (and hometown) fans. Sort of surprised that they didn’t bring in Suzuki as a pinch-hitter in the 8th to give the home fans an at-bat by a Twin, though.
5. All five runs by the AL came off Cardinals pitching, so if the Cardinals make it to the World Series and lose in 7, they have nobody to blame but themselves.
Well, that stunk. Oh, sure, the 2014 Home Run Derby had it’s moments, but in my mind at least, it was the worst Derby since the Modern Derby Era began when ESPN started showing it live instead of on tape delay.
And I think the problem was format. Oh, sure, there were other things wrong: the rain was totally outside of everyone’s control, of course, and Target Field was never going to be the place to give us one of those Derbies that remind us why they hold the event in the first place (such as the 1999 one in Fenway, or Abreu’s performance in Pittsburgh or Hamilton’s in New York). But, mostly, it was the format.
Oh, sure, the new format of having brackets leading up to a showdown between the best HR hitter of each lead seemed good in theory, but in practice, it stunk. Mainly because it forgot the main reason we watch the Derby: to see lots and lots of dingers, especially those from BP legends like Giancarlo Stanton, who can (and did) send balls into parts of the stadium you never even knew existed.
With the bracket format, however, Stanton and Jose Bautista sat around a lot, and by the time they got back from their bye, they were rusty, and the now-truncated 7 outs (instead of 10) didn’t really give them much time to warm up. The result? Last night saw us see a lot of Todd Frazier (who isn’t bad, but is far, far from a Giancarlo Stanton, HR-wise) and very little Stanton and Bautista. Only the fact Yoennis Cespedes was still going throughout the whole thing kept it from being a total snoozefest.
So, here’s my idea on how they can fix the HR Derby:
9 Players: 4 AL, 4 NL and one Wild Card
Having “Captains” pick teams has been more good than bad, so that can stay, but for sake of time the number of players overall should go down. So, instead of picking four teammates, as they did this season, they will only pick three, as they did in previous years. However, a “Wild Card” spot would be added, to be decided upon by the powers that be. It could be a prospect who has impressed (like Joey Gallo), it could be a recently-retired slugger who probably still has some pop in his bat (imagine if Jim Thome, for example, had been swinging last night), or it could be for a MLB player who the captains just couldn’t find a spot for.
10 Outs, but Only 2 Rounds
Each batter would get 10 outs, but, to make the Derby shorter and less of a drag, there would only be two rounds: the first round of 9 (which would also act as a “AL vs. NL” round, with the winning team getting a bunch of dough for the captain’s charity), then a second, championship round of three.
And, hey, if they NEED to pad it out a little… why not have a third round of the top two who survive the round of three?
I’m just saying.
The MVPs of the weekend were Garrett Richards, Chris Johnson, and Elian Herrera.
Standings, as always, after the jump:
The Baseball Continuum 