Prof: Hi, I’m back. Did you miss me? I’m writing this on Sunday, and today was the Hall of Fame induction ceremony. Chipper, Trevor, and Thome – three of my all time favorites – got the plaque, along with Alan Trammell, Vlad Guerrero, and Jack Morris. The Hall of Fame ceremony is an emotional time for me, because I love baseball so much. I think it’s fitting that we honor the greats of our game and cherish what they did to grow the sport and inspire so many people to play, to watch, and to appreciate this beautiful game that we all love. I know there are a lot of people who believe in a Small Hall, and those who believe in a Big Hall (I’m a Big Hall person). But I think we can all agree that, for the most part, people who get inducted into that little museum in Cooperstown all have made an indelible mark upon the game and, for better or for worse, changed it in some way.
Today’s music…. what else? Hall of Fame quality tuneage! Obviously, Hell’s Bells is for Trevor Hoffman, and Crazy Train is for Chipper, but can you identify the other three I’ve used? Not from this class…
Rays 5, Orioles 11 – Prof: The Orioles? Won? A SERIES? We’ve fallen through the looking glass, folks. Adam Jones had three hits and an RBI. He might very well be traded, although to be honest it’s not looking like he will be. But if he is next on the block, he sure made his last home stand a special one. Dylan Bundy pitched well and for once his team helped him with offense, especially the arctic bat of Chris Davis (who had two homers today).
Twins 0, Red Sox 3 – Prof: Nathan Eovaldi was traded to Boston while I was on my hiatus, and he didn’t waste any time making himself comfortable. Eovaldi went seven scoreless innings and made it easy for the BoSox offense to make good, which they did. J.D. Martinez continues to be the gas in the engine, driving in all three runs. Craig Kimbrel gets the save, his 33rd of the season.
Royals 3, Yankees 6 – Scouts: J.A. Happ provided immediate returns for the Yankees, allowing just a single run over 6 strong innings. It sure didn’t hurt that he faced the Royals.
Spiders 8, Tigers 1 – Prof: The Klubot didn’t need to pitch a gem to win this game, but he didn’t suck, either. Edwin Encarnacion hit a homer, Yonder Alonso did, too, and the Spiders gets a W on the same day that Jim Thome goes into Cooperstown repping the Magical Land of Cleve.
Phillies 0, Reds 4 – Prof: My tiny son, Scooter Gennett, will never make it into the Hall of Fame. But he’s the Reds MVP this season, full stop, and he was again on Sunday as he hit a towering two run dinger against the Phillies.
Nationals 0, Marlins 5 – Prof: Under .500, the Nats are surprising us all, but not in a good way. The Marlins shut them out and caused Daniel Murphy to commit an error that led to a JT Realmuto run. Martin Prado – former Braves great – drove Brian Anderson in twice. Wow. What’s going to happen in DC now?
Dodgers 1, Braves 4 – Prof: I’m going to address the elephant in the room. Yes, Sean Newcomb got Hader’d. Yes, what he said was gross. And yes, this came after Joe Simpson and Chip Caray showed their collective asses on the Saturday broadcast saying that the Dodgers’ batting practice attire was disgraceful because Chase Utley had THE NERVE to wear a “K Cancer” shirt. Other than Chipper getting into the Hall, this win, and Newcomb’s one strike away from a no-hit bid performance, it was a bad weekend for Atlanta.
Mets 1, Pirates 0 – Scouts: So, apparently Zack Wheeler was the only player on either team to show up to the game on Sunday. Wheeler struck out 7 over 6 shutout innings and drove in the only RBI of the day with a two out double in the 5th.
Blue Jays 7, White Sox 4 – Scouts: Chicago was up 3-2 but as they say the game isn’t over until it’s all the way over, and the Blue Jays rallied for 5 runs in the 9th to stun the White Sox.
Rangers 4, Astros 3 – Prof: This Rangers team is tough. They become the first team to sweep the reigning champs this season, beat a strong Lance McCullers Junior and his eleven strikeouts, all while Jurickson Profar got SPIKED IN THE FACE on accident and still stayed in the game.
Athletics 2, Rockies 3 – Scouts: Colorado comes up big, shutting down the red-hot Athletics on a three game sweep. Ryan McMahon smacked a pair of doubles and Tom Murphy smoked a two run homer for the Rockies.
Mariners 8, Angels 5 – Scouts: Seattle busted out for 7 in the first, and held strong from there, bending but not breaking against the Angels. The much needed win stopped a recent skid and prevented a series sweep for the Mariners.
Brewers 5, Giants 8 – Scouts: The Brewers got homers from Ryan Braun, Travis Shaw, and Hernan Perez, but it wasn’t enough to stop Buster Posey’s 4 hit, 3 RBI performance.
Diamondbacks 5, Padres 4 – Prof: The Gritty Snakes were all homers, all the time. Paul Goldschmidt and Nick Ahmed both had two run bombs, and A.J. Pollock had a humdinger of a dinger, a solo shot to center at Petco. That’s legit. San Diego sure did try, bless them, but it was not to be. At least Padres fans had Trevor Hoffman to celebrate!
Cubs 5, Cardinals 2 – Scouts: Anthony Rizzo hit his 3rd homer in the last 4 games as well as scored the winning run on an error, while Kyle Hendricks struck out 8 over 7 innings.
Fan Interference 
Regarding Newcomb, there are rumors that it was a Nats fan who Hader’d him, and so a Braves fan then Newcomb’d Trea Turner. He and the Nats were both quick with statements last night, and Trea’s apology read, to me, like a real apology with none of the “sorry if I offended anyone” bullshit, but I’m not part of the LGBTQ community, so it’s not for me to say if it was enough.
I’ve told both my kids that the Internet is forever, so hopefully they’ll take that message to heart.
In other news, we root for laundry when we root for a team, and sometimes forget the fact that the people wearing the laundry are people who, while athletically gifted, aren’t immune to bad things happening in their lives. Anthony Rendon’s wife had a baby on Thursday, and he was initially placed on the Paternity leave list, meaning he was supposed to be gone for three days (Thursday-Saturday) and back yesterday.
He still hasn’t returned to the team, having been placed on what the Nats called the Family Medical Leave list, and what the official transaction page lists as the Bereavement List. Unclear to me if they’re the same list, with Bereavement being the official name for it, but there have been no details shared as of yet (and we don’t have a right to know anything in cases like these) so fans are just hoping that whatever it is works out for the best.
As for the Nats in general, it’s time to sell and prepare to reload for next year. They can go chasing after Realmuto in the winter if they first manage to re-sign Harper, but trading Victor Robles and Carter Kieboom now would be a mistake, in my opinion, because this team just doesn’t have it in them to go on an extended run.
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Prayers for the Rendon family, regardless of what’s happening.
I will give credit to Newcomb, when he got Hader’d (and yes, it was a Twitter user named NatsSquid, a well known troll tbh), he was the one who told the Braves that he wanted to address the media immediately. He made himself available to the press after the game, in lieu of just a statement. The gay slurs are gross. The few racial epitaphs are song lyrics, and I can’t find anything particularly full-on racist in his tweets, just poor judgement in posting full lyrics.
I give him credit for meeting the issue immediately and not having the team do shit a day later.
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“They can go chasing after Realmuto in the winter if they first manage to re-sign Harper, but trading Victor Robles and Carter Kieboom now would be a mistake, in my opinion, because this team just doesn’t have it in them to go on an extended run.”
After a spirited, yet polite, discussion on twitter with another Nats fan, I’d like to retract my statement, at least partially, and give my blessing to trading Robles, as I’m now convinced that outfielders who will produce like Robles are much more likely to be found in free agency than will catchers who can produce like Realmuto.
BUY!! AND SELL TOO!!
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I actually agree. Catchers who can frame and are handy with the bat are actually kinda hard to find these days. Outfielders are everywhere
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Catchers who can handle a bat usually end up playing elsewhere, though. F.P. Santangelo threw out a Craig Biggio comparison for Realmuto this weekend.
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BHarp even started as a backstop. Rare are the Joe Mauers, you know?
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Damn right about Super Joe Prof. Sad thing is this is the last year of his contract and nobody around here knows if he’s back next year or not.
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I can’t imagine him going anywhere else. Joe is basically like Chipper and Davey Wright… He has been loyal to this org, warts and all, and in return he should be shown loyalty and appreciation. But you and I know that’s about as rare as a guy like Joe is.
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What’s strange about this entire situation and the one during the AS break, was why isn’t it the VERY first thing these kids are forced to do when they are drafted to delete their post history. Why isn’t the teams who have Social Media managers searching for and looking for this stuff? Why aren’t the agents and PR reps and well, everyone checking for this shit? Just delete Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, whatever and let the people paid to do it for you do it. It’s not that hard and it’ll save you such a massive amount of embarrassment.
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At the end of the day, kids are especially stupid. They don’t think before they type, they dont consider how others from the outside may not get their off the wall movie or song reference 15 years later, or they just stay stupid shit to be edgy and a rebel and a badass or whatever. Why aren’t the people who are getting paid to protect these kids, actually doing their jobs?
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I believe someone just went viral with a report that Derek Jeter crapped his diaper when he was a week old. MLB is assigning Zack Grienke to toilet train him later this week.
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Here’s a pretty good take on the Turner/Newcomb/Hader tweets:
https://wapo.st/2OwKbiC
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It’s just another variation on all the other takes. This one emphasizes that aggrieved parties want to be identified by aggrieving parties in the latter’s apologies, even if the offender had never me them and had no idea who they were. All of these congenital whiners have their own versions of the apology they would have issued and it’s the only version with which they would be satisfied.
Here’s an idea: why not let the aggrieved parties offend someone and then issue their own apologies to their own specifications. Otherwise, all this outrage and puffery about what people wrote or said when they were stupid kids is getting very old in a hurry. These supposedly deeply injured self righteous types remind me of frilled lizards:
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I’m not making this up. I’ve gotten around half a dozen spam emails this last week advertising to me the virtues of “Cannabis Gummies”. I also got a couple of emails informing me that I have been pre selected to participate in a clinical trial concerning said Gummies in the pursuit of short term pain relief. They should know that short term pain relief just don’t hack it for a Twins fan.
Too bad they didn’t send me some of them gummies before tonight’s game with the Phils, you know to increase the chances of getting me to click on one of the links in those emails.
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The Nats seem to be lost in a “disoriented, milling around” phase, but that could easily become a circling-the-drain phase soon (no matter how much Max yells at them). If so, they’ll fire Martinez after the season “because you can’t fire the players.” I’m actually less saddened by this state of affairs because they’re in D.C. than I’d have been if they had stayed north of the border.
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I’m of a belief that absent open hostile revolt in the clubhouse, Martinez will start the season as manager next year, regardless of how the team finishes. The Lerner family isn’t keen on spending money without getting a tangible return, and paying Martinez to not manage for two years would go against their brand.
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