OK, in a nice scoreless tie game, Sweeney draws a walk. OBP!

Next up, Milton Bradley. Last at bat, he lashed a double down the line. Ex-Cub Chad Gaudin warming up in the bullpen. With Milton batting right (by far his stronger side—he’s a switch-hitter in name only), can Anderson get out of this no-out jam?

Oh, double play. Guess Milton shoulda tried to draw the walk. . .

UPDATE: Kotchman draws the walk—OBP!—and advances to second on a wild pitch. Could one run win this game? Sure, why not.

A second WP sends Kotchman to third. One more and M’s score!

OOPs, never mind, shoulda watched more closely: that was a Hit Batsman, only men on first and second. Time for ex-NL Central suckmeister Jack Wilson to come through.. . with a FC forceout at second. Inning over.

So much squandered hope. . .

UPDATE One of the joys of the MLB all-game cable thing is that you get the feeds from the home team. The sound isn’t on, but seeing Jay Buehner just now reminds me of a game I went to at the Kingdome back in the mid-90s sometime. Me and a pal from grad school walked down and bought what we were told were “box seats” which were all the way out the left field line, with terrible sightlines. We spent an inning or two bitching, then decided to move up to better seats. I spotted a section between home and third that was mostly empty, and my buddy went for beers while I moved down. Did the old trick of looking at my ticket and then the seats, as though to say, Yes, here is MY seat, how convenient. I noted that I was getting the stink-eye from EVERYONE in the section, and they all were very tanned women with lots of jewelry and makeup, and just as the usher came up to eject me, I realized: I was in the player’s wives’ section. Shit. The joke back at Chez Sauvage was that if I was going to pass for anyone’s wife, it’d be Jay Buehner’s.

UPDATE M’s manage to hold the A’s scoreless, but Ichiro—who is a God—strikes out. One down in the 7th.

Chone doubles, A’s go to the bullpen. Ziegler’s coming in, and this might be the end of this post, as I gotta get up tomorrow and, you know, do my job of teaching. And as Slake has pointed out, I cannot just show up and give bad pedagogy, since only ballplayers get to do that Slow Start thing.

FUCK—almost a wild pitch from the side-armer, Chone breaks for third and is WAAAY out thanks to an acrobatic cartwheel/throw by the A’s catcher Suzuki. Man. Great defensive play, never seen that before (the cartwheel part). The throw was right in Kouzmanoff’s glove as Chone slid into it. That’s why baseball is the best game—you can watch it carefully for years, decades, and still see things that you’d never seen before.

UPDATE: Ok, just one more beer and one more inning. Gotta stick around to see Milton.

Lopez leads off with a single that Ziegler tried for a foot-save on. Good way to go on the DL. Sweeney, can you come down out of the treetops (Irish literary reference) and advance the runner? One run can win this well-pitched and well-defended game.

Ziegler is putting on a clinic showing why there are so few side-armers pitching in MLB. Any miss is a potential WP or PB, advancing the runner.

Or if you miss enough, just a walk. Pinch runner in for Sweeney in case Milton comes through. Eric Byrnes. Needs a haircut. Milton is up left-handed, a mistake. But he will probably try to draw the walk rather than actually hitting.

I take it all back (and am posting this even though I could go back and revise my prediction here) 3 run homer for Milton, he is king of the world, Ma!

UPDATE: Love the Soundtransit ads. With the pie graph about saving the world v. saving money. Can’t we do both?

Again, no volume on the TV here (only I give a shit about this game in Chicago) but the camera keeps focusing on Milton, who’s sitting alone at the end of the bench, not looking very happy despite his homer. Will this game give him the psychological boost that everyone thinks he needs?

UPDATE
Walk looks bad, double-play looks good, four-pitch walk reminds me that Aardsma is the very first man listed in the Baseball Encyclopedia, and shouldn’t he play for the A’s at some point in his career, just for the alphabetical fun of it? . . 0-2 count, let’s strike this guy out and get it over with

Or a pop up to first will do. M’s win.

Now, gotta run. The sun also rises tomorrow, and I’ve got some novel by Hemingway to teach. . . .

20 replies on “Live-Slogging, briefly, the Mariners”

  2. And Milton raises his average to .080.

    I’d love to know the M’s overall record vs the A’s in the last decade. Seems like we never beat these guys. (it could be because I get a call from a buddy in SF each loss, but man I think they have our number).

  5. I want to talk more about Babe Ruth’s called shot, so I’ll also post here. It’s possible Babe’s “call” was legend. BUT, you did mention one newspaper mentioned the called shot and/or gestures. I don’t know how many papers covered teams back in the day, but can’t imagine there were that many. (unless that is, they followed the Babe like the Japanese cover Ichiro, but I kinda doubt it). Anybody know?

    Justice JPS said Ruth was being razzed and gestured to the scoreboard in centerfield. The score was tied, so he wasn’t pointing to the score. He could have been pointing to the fact he still had two more strikes left. He got another strike, more razzing, and again gestured to centerfield. He cranked the next one to centerfield. And the next day the New York World-Telegram headline screamed “RUTH CALLS SHOT, PUTS HOME RUN IN NO.2 SIDE POCKET.

    I know Ruth sometimes laughed it off, but it it was in the NY World Telegram it must be true…. and I prefer the legend.

    And I think it’s perjury if a Supreme Court Justice doesn’t tell the truth at all times. (grin)

  7. Slake

    Baseball was the only professional team sport that mattered in the 1930s. NFL was nothing. College football, horse racing, boxing and baseball were the sporting culture. The World Series was covered by scores of journalists, not just following Babe Ruth around like Ichiro., but following the National Pastime. One headline in a syndicated news outfit’s coverage does not a fact make. The fact that only ONE writer covering that game mentioned this moment means a lot.

  8. CF can’t even get Buhner’s name right. Pathetic that this douche is writing about baseball. Can’t Slog do better?

  14. @12, I’m agreeing with 12 here, I think we need as many of CF’s Mariner mini-blogs as possible. I received a history lesson (did I just get schooled? Ha!), but still think Babe called his shot… maybe people had bad eyes back then…and I’m liking CF’s take on the M’s… you won’t get it anywhere else… and it’s funny to read the angry people.

    and in this (very limited) case, I’m going all tea bagger believing one news source (NY World et al) and ignoring any facts relating to Babe Ruth that didn’t come from JPS.

    Go M’s!!

  15. The reason only one paper headlined Babe Ruth’s called shot was because the all the other ones led with:

    “CUBS- PREPARE FOR 100 YEARS OF LOSING”

  17. CF @ 11 – I agree with you, and there was nothing brief about that Live slog, but your love for the game does shine through. Thought you would be interested in this post-game report:

    Bradley was treated to a post-game beer shower, customary for Mariners players who were here last season. Not something Bradley is associated with all that often.

    This one was about as festive as it gets, from what I’m told. An icy bath that didn’t stop.

    Bradley is a serious guy. A player as intense as they come. But he told us on the weekend how much he appreciated being here, with this team, and I know, despite his stoic demeanor afterwards, that he had to enjoy what happened post-game tonight.

    “We have fun every day,” Bradley said. “That’s the one thing that makes it easy to come here every day. Guys are great. Top-to-bottom, that’s a part of this organization. And that’s something that I really can’t say I’ve had my entire career. I just feel like I’m in such a better place.”
    ~~~~~~~~~

    Now – take it all with a grain of salt from a guy on a team that is now 3-6 against their own division, but if Milton – who is NOT the key to the M’s success btw – is going to thrive, this would seem to be the environment for it.

    Yes – Hope springs eternal and indeed – It Happens Every Spring, which is a movie every baseball fan should see.

    Go M’s.

  18. Great baseball!

    Best: Jay Buhner asked by Mike Blowers what his call is for the batter (as bunting was certainly a viable option), Buhner says “three-run homer of course… but…”

    next pitch, Bradley smacks a three-run homer.

  19. @2, in the last three seasons at least, Seattle went 24-19 against Oakland.

    This is interesting, too: “The Athletics are currently the lowest scoring team in the league at 4.0 runs per game. the Mariners are the second lowest scoring team in the league at 4.1 runs per game.”

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