The Marlins go early and Ozzie gets some final naughty-words in during the final episode of the 2012 edition of “The Franchise”

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So, it is done. The Franchise on the Miami Marlins is done. Much like, it should be noted, the Marlins’ playoff hopes. This was why it has ended early, only going seven episodes instead of the originally planned eight. Showtime and MLB Productions were having a hard time making the Marlins interesting as they fell deeper and deeper into the basement, so they basically just threw up their hands and said “screw it”. The result is a final episode where the documentarians basically throw in every prepacked bit they hadn’t included already, focus somewhat on the future of the Marlins, and with heavy doses of what might have been. Oh, and Ozzie Guillen swears. Of course.

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Great Baseball Lies: Roger Clemens is NOT pitching in the Minor Leagues this Saturday

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As you all likely know, the Rocket is back. Roger Clemens, last seen escaping government perjury charges, will be lacing them up for a start with the Atlantic League’s Sugar Land Skeeters. However, you see some news articles saying this means he is going to have a “Minor League” start.

This, in a way, is true, as it is in a league that isn’t a Major League. However, it isn’t really true, because the Atlantic League is not a Minor League (the Minor Leagues are all under the umbrella of the organization Minor League Baseball), it is an independent league. Let me explain:

Way back when, every minor league was an independent league. Teams weren’t tied up with affiliations, as there were no farm systems. Instead, they signed their own players and, if those players were good, they’d sell those players to a big club for a profit. For example, Babe Ruth was a member of the International League’s Baltimore Orioles, and was sold to the Boston Red Sox. Occasionally a team might have a deal with a big league team that they’d give them the first crack at signing a minor league star, but it was more of a case of the owners or managers being buddies, not anything official.

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Bizarre baseball connections and other trivia

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Weird connections between baseball and other areas, most of which have nothing to do with baseball. All of these are true:

  • Victor Conte, steroid guru, was a member of the band Tower of Power for a few years in the seventies and eighties.
  • Todd Zeile is a direct descendant of President John Adams.
  • Reggie Jackson was considered for the role of Geordi LaForge in Star Trek: The Next Generation.
  • Umpire Cal Hubbard is the only man in the baseball and pro football Halls of Fame.
  • Hugo Bezdek is the only man to manage a MLB team (Pirates from 1917-1919) and NFL team (Cleveland Rams, 1937-38). He also coached college football, college basketball and college baseball at one time or another.
  • Casey Candaele, who played for the Expos, Astros and Indians during the 80s and 90s, was the son of Helen Callaghan, a player in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League.
  • Ted Williams was John Glenn’s wingman in the Korean War.
  • Pitcher Trevor Bell, who pitched parts of the previous three seasons with the Angels but who is no longer in the majors, is the grandson of the original Bozo the Clown.
  • Todd Helton was replaced by Peyton Manning at QB at the University of Tennessee and ended up being his backup. Seth Smith was Eli Manning’s backup at Ole Miss. Helton and Smith were both on the Rockies from 2007 to 2011.
  • The Albuquerque Isotopes take their name from a episode of The Simpsons where the local baseball team, the Springfield Isotopes, almost moved to Albuquerque. Although to be fair, New Mexico certainly does have connections with nuclear isotopes.

Updates on previous posts

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Let’s look back at developments from some previous posts….

Oh, and the Cubs still stink, so the world isn’t ending.

Uganda, the LLWS, and a milestone for African baseball

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If there is one continent out there that can truly be said to be untouched by baseball, it is likely Africa. Baseball is, of course, popular in North America, Asia, and parts of South America. There are small professional leagues in Europe (mainly the Netherlands and Italy) and Australia. But Africa, birthplace of humanity, is in some ways the final frontier of baseball. Only South Africa has any sort of baseball tradition, playing in the first two World Baseball Classics and producing several minor leaguers over the years, most notably Gift Ngoepe, the first black South African to play professionally, who was featured in a Sports Illustrated article a few years ago. South Africa, however, is one of the most advanced nations in Africa, and has, since the end of Apartheid, been more-or-less a country that has avoided much of the strife and war that has plagued several African countries.

The same cannot be said for Uganda, which makes the accomplishment of the Ugandan Little League team all the more special.

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Ozzie Guillen is silent, Jose Reyes’ streak ends, and Eritrea comes into play in the 6th episode of “The Franchise”

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First off, let me show you the “Carlin Word” count for Wednesday’s episode of The Franchise for Ozzie Guillen:

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…..

There weren’t any. The total number of times he’s used a swear word on The Franchise remains at 105. On average, Ozzie Guillen swears about once every two minutes.

So, there you go, people-only-here-to-read-about-Ozzie-Guillen-language. Now, everyone else, go after the jump to read my observations

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Further Thoughts on Melky Cabrera’s Steroid Suspens— HOLY COW, ANOTHER PERFECT GAME!

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Well, as I said yesterday, Melky Cabrera, having a career year that seemed too good to be true, apparently… was too good to be true. He was busted for PEDs- increases testosterone, to be more exact. His suspension severely hurts the Giants and casts a serious pall upon his season thus far, including his All-Star MVP.

But, lucky for Melky Cabrera, Felix Hernandez proceeded to throw a perfect game, totally distracting everybody from the fact that, well, Melky Cabrera had been busted for PEDs. And not only did he throw a perfect game, he struck out 12 doing it! That’s almost in Cain/Koufax territory! I mean, just look at what the AA Mariners in Jackson, Tennessee (including Felix Hernandez’s brother) did when they saw it. There is nothing that gets baseball to come together quite like a good perfect game. Perfect games to baseball fans are what NASA landings are to space geeks, what a 3-overtime playoff game is to NHL fans, and what the Winter Olympics are to fans of curling. It instantly gets our attention, all of our attention.

So, well, Melky Cabrera is one lucky person. Well, other than having his free agent stock plummeting and missing the rest of the season. But at least he wasn’t the biggest story of the day. So, uh, good for him.

Melky Cabrera has been caught for PEDs

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Melky Cabrera has become the first major non-Manny Ramirez steroid suspension in quite awhile, testing positive for a banned substance.

To his credit, Cabrera has apparently fessed up and admitted that he took something he shouldn’t have. If only all people caught with PEDs were so honest when the jig was up.

More later.

The Players v. Bobby Valentine (AKA The Palace Hotel Mutiny)

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Baseball is full of stories of teams that turned on their managers. In the early 1950s, for example, the St. Louis Browns were so happy that Rogers Hornsby had been fired that they gave Bill Veeck a trophy in appreciation (whether they actually did or if it was another Veeckian publicity stunt is up for debate). But rarely have there been revolts quite as slow-motion and public as the one unfolding in Boston, which is worthy of a comedy movie, a sort of reverse-Major League in which a team of All-Stars and colorful characters goes below even lowered expectations. Oh, and instead of Lou Brown, this team is managed by Bobby Valentine.

Although this clubhouse drama has been going on all year, it has once again been burst into the forefront thanks to a report by Jeff Passan of Yahoo! Sports that revealed that several major Red Sox players blasted Valentine during a meeting with club officials on July 26 at New York’s Palace Hotel (or maybe it was just some meetings about the overall poor performance of the club, but it seems like the accounts of it being a player revolt outnumber those accounts). This post has been created to summarize the details and provide levity to such a spectacle. Much of the information in this posting can be found in Passan’s tour de force.

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My roster projections so far for the 2012-2013 World Baseball Classic (as of Aug. 14, 2012)

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For those of you who want to see all of my projections for team rosters in the 2013 World Baseball Classic, here’s a list of those I’ve done so far, in order of when I did them, as well as what teams are coming up and I have begun researching and assembling (in a order that is subject to change):

  1. United States of America
  2. Dominican Republic
  3. Venezuela
  4. Mexico
  5. Puerto Rico
  6. Panama
  7. Canada
  8. Australia
  9. The Netherlands (coming soon)
  10. Nicaragua (coming soon)
  11. Colombia (coming soon)
  12. Taiwan/Chinese Taipei (coming soon)
  13. Cuba (coming soon)

?. Japan and Korea (will be up shortly after it becomes official that they will take part- the Japanese union is in a money dispute with the WBC, Korea is undergoing labor strife over the fact that the Korean League is going to expand by only one team instead of the two expected)