At 2:00 p.m. yesterday, David Price was at Tropicana Field throwing. I saw footage of it last night and wondered if he was out there out of routine or to say farewell to the only professional team he’s ever played for. According to Marc Topkin:

Price has been pitching for weeks knowing a trade was possible. But he had hoped, even Thursday, when he went to play golf and swung by the Trop for a workout, that it wasn’t going to happen.

“It’s tough to put into words,” he told the Tampa Bay Times. “There’s absolute sadness. This is where I’ve been the last seven years. I love the guys, I love being here. It’s different.”

I also saw a clip of Austin Jackson being called off the field in the middle of an inning, hugging teammates in the dugout. Four-and-a-half years with the Tigers and goodbye. Then I saw this article linked over at Hardball Talk.

Yeah, I know this is just business–it’s Chinatown, Jake–but I couldn’t help but feel for the sense of loss these men–and their former teammates, not to mention fans–were experiencing.

Must feel unreal.

[Photo Credit: Yash Dravid via It’s a Long Season]

Lester and Gomes to the A’s for Cespedes. Billy Beane going all in. Sounds like a good deal for the Sox, too.

Wow.

Trade, anyone?

Latest has Lester going to the O’s. Dag!

[Photo Credit: Getty Images]

Head on over to the Stacks and check out my tribute to Roger Angell.

[Photo Credit: John Weiss]

Dig this nice appreciation of Mark Buehrle by Rany Jazayerli over at Grantland:

Everyone makes mistakes. One of mine is that it took me a long time to appreciate Buehrle, and not just because every time he pitched for the White Sox, I had to listen to Hawk Harrelson sing his praises. I mean, Buehrle was drafted in the 38th round out of some college no one had heard of,2 he almost never hit 90 on the radar gun, and he didn’t strike anyone out. Sure, he reached the major leagues just 14 months after he signed as a draft-and-follow in 1999, but he was never a top prospect. He wasn’t much of a prospect, period. During his first full season in the majors, I fixated on his mere 126 strikeouts in 221 innings far more than on his 16-8 record, 3.29 ERA, or AL-leading 1.066 WHIP. He was a junk-tossing left-hander, and those guys always get figured out eventually.

Only, Buehrle hasn’t gotten figured out, and he’s currently helping fuel the Toronto Blue Jays’ playoff hopes. Despite pitching in arguably the AL’s best home run park for hitters for most of his career, he’s produced only one bad season: 2006, the sole year when his ERA+ dropped below 100 and, conveniently if less meaningfully, the only year when he finished with a losing record. He’s been consistently above average without ever being elite. He’s earned a single Cy Young vote just once, in 2005, and the category in which he’s most often led the league is hits allowed, four times.

He’s led the league in hits allowed four times because he throws a lot of innings, and because he gives up a lot of contact. And he gives up a lot of contact because the one thing he does not do is miss bats. After getting called up midseason in 2000, Buehrle struck out 37 batters in 51.1 innings, a ratio a tick higher than the league average at the time. He’s posted a below-average strikeout rate every season since, and has struck out 150 batters just once in his career.

[Photo Credit: Getty Images]

Jeter’s final All Star Game.

Deh-Rick Gee-Tah!

[Pictures Via: It’s a Long Season]

All Star Break Open Thread. [Photo Credit: Alex Brandon/AP]

That’s be Brazil vs. Germany. Have at it.

Yankee game thread to follow…

[Picture by Nirav Patel]

U.S. vs. Germany open thread.

[Photo Credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images]

Slide on over to SB Nation Longform and check out Joe DePaolo’s profile of Mariano Rivera III:

The father is here to cheer on his 20-year-old son — a redshirt sophomore for the Gaels. Listed on the Iona roster as Mariano Rivera, the son’s legal name is actually Mariano Rivera III (although most everybody, including dad, refers to him as “Jr.”). Beyond the name and the fact that they both pitch, there are other similarities between the two. There are also many differences, one of which is that the son is a starter — at least while he is in college. “He’s too good to be a reliever at this level,” says Iona head coach Pat Carey.

That’s an assessment the scouts seem to agree with. After Rivera records the third out, the men put down their radar guns and dutifully record the pitch in their notebooks. They offer no expression, but can’t help but to have been impressed by what they’ve seen so far. This is a good lineup that Rivera has set aside in the first, all via strikeout. Seton Hall’s high-powered offense entered the contest averaging 7.8 runs per game. That offense has helped propel them to a 16-4 record and the No. 19 spot in ESPN’s unofficial power rankings going into today’s game. Iona, which plays in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, seldom plays a team of this caliber. It is a rare chance for the scouts to see what Rivera can do against a lineup with some punch.

As he makes his way back to the dugout, he avoids eye contact with the scouts, but he is fully aware of their presence.

“Twenty something scouts,” he says. “Most scouts ever in my life. Obviously, it’s in the back of my mind.”

Rivera takes a seat and grabs as much solitude as he can in the cramped Iona dugout. This is hardly out of character for him. Rivera is well liked among this group, and treated like just one of the guys. He is close friends with some teammates, but he tends to set himself apart, and sits alone between innings.

[Photo Credit: Holly Tonini]

Love Kevin Durant.

[Photo Credit: Sue Ogrock/AP]

I once asked a friend: “If you could do one thing in a major league game what would it be? Strike a hitter out, hit a home run, steal home?”

He said, “Rob someone of a homer.”

That hadn’t occurred to me.

I was reminded of this yesterday when Paul Pierce blocked Kyle Lowry’s shot in the final seconds of Game 7 in Toronto. It was a clean block. If the shot went in, the Raptors would have won. But Pierce blocked it–with his left hand–and the Nets won.

What a Boss way to end an opponents’ season.

[Photo Credit: Corey Sipkin/N.Y. Daily News]

On March 26th, the Miami Heat and the Indiana Pacers clashed in their ongoing battle for the first seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs and the home-court advantage that comes with it. Indiana was not letting Lebron James get near the basket unmolested, and the officials didn’t see anything wrong with the extra attention beyond the nominal foul call here and there.

Lebron James, perhaps frustrated by a perceived lack of protection from the refs, rushed the basket in the fourth quarter with intent to make contact with whatever got in his way. Specifically, Roy Hibbert’s head got in the way. Lebron’s elbow felled the big fella. Hibbert crashed to the floor, attempted to get up, and promptly crashed down again.

Hibbert went to the locker room after the fall, but, by rule, was forced to re-emerge to take the foul shots resulting from Lebron’s flagrant. (The rule, Jeff Van Gundy instructed, was that Hibbert had to take the free throws or else he would be unable to return to the game.)

A few days later, April 2nd, he fell to the floor after a flagrant foul from Charlie Villanueva. He went to the locker room, receiving attention to his head and neck. He returned to that game as well.

Up to March 26th, Roy Hibbert had played in every Pacer game of the season. He shot .459 from the field, grabbed 7 rebounds and scored 11.3 points in his 30 minutes per night. Though not the most efficient big man around, this year’s numbers were in line with a career shooting percentage of .473 over 295 games through last year.

After March 26th Hibbert played in nine games, shot .272 from the field with 3.4 rebounds and 6.8 points in 26.4 minutes per game. In five more playoff games, he’s shooting .313 from the field and down to 3.4 rebounds and 4.8 points in just 21.9 minutes.

Indiana did win the coveted first seed and home-court advantage, but they now face elimination by the lowly Hawks. Hibbert’s play has been so putrid, many have taken notice. Other pundits have gone so far to say his career may be over. Here’s one of many things Bill Simmons noted about Hibbert’s recent decline:

The Law of Mutombo tells us this: You never know when a tall center is about to lose it, but when they lose it, you know right away. Artis Gilmore gained the nickname “Rigor Artis” in the mid-’80s. Shaq turned into Mummified Shaq somewhere between Phoenix and Cleveland. Dikembe was kicking ass and wagging fingers right until the 2001 Finals, when Shaq turned him into a lumbering, uncoordinated, elbow-laden mass of uselessness. Even if Hibbert is only 27, what if this wasn’t a slump? What if the Law of Mutombo struck him early?

It’s been reported that Hibbert passed concussion tests on both March 26th and April 2nd. Still, statistcal collapse such as Hibbert’s demands that we consider the possibility of severe and sustaining injury. It appears further investigation to his condition is warranted – whether the man is jacked up or not, he’s playing jacked up.

Photo by Brent Drinkut / Indy Star

Banned for life. 

[Photo Credit: Felipe Bertarelli via MPD]

Over at Grantland, Charlie Pierce weighs in on the many problems with Donald Sterling:

But there is one problem that never can be solved. This is because what is a problem for you might not be a problem for the good old boy network of plutocrats that actually own the games into which you pour your devotion and your money. And, even if you decide to stop spending the latter to satisfy the former, it may not really matter. The odds are that, through the largesse of television and the legerdemain of modern accounting, you can’t solve it that way, either. There never has been anything you can do about a bad owner. That one is out of your hands.

Which is where we find ourselves today in the case of Donald Sterling, the alleged racist slumlord owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, who was an alleged racist slumlord, and a confirmed terrible owner, for three decades before audio surfaced of a conversation that was reportedly between him and a woman named V. Stiviano, who appears to have James O’Keefe’d him. (Is there more? Of course there is.)

The league is investigating the audio, but by now, half the world has already weighed in, including the coach of his team, the commissioner of the National Basketball Association, LeBron James, and the president of the United States. All of them agree — as does any advanced carbon-based life form — that if the recording is authentic, the comments show that Sterling is undeniably racist, undeniably revolting, and undeniably rooted in the mind of a man who would have to yield his moral pride of place to algae. There have been a number of calls for the league to strip Sterling of his franchise. This, I confess, makes me more than a little nervous. Taking someone’s assets because of what they think and say, no matter how grotesque it is, sets off all kinds of alarm bells in my First Amendment conscience. The league certainly is within its rights to suspend him, for as long as it wants to suspend him. There were also calls for the Clippers players to make some kind of public statement. Before Sunday’s Game 4 against the Golden State Warriors, they did just that, when they removed their shooting shirts at center court and turned their red warm-ups inside out.

Cool obit in the Times:

Connie Marrero, a chunky right-hander from Cuba with a windmill delivery and a wicked curveball, was nearly 39 years old when he reached the major leagues with the 1950 Washington Senators.

He went on to become an All-Star in his second season, when he threw a one-hitter against the Philadelphia Athletics, and he won 39 games in five seasons with lackluster Senator teams.

When he died on Wednesday in Havana at 102, two days short of his 103rd birthday, Marrero was the oldest former major leaguer. But his time with the Senators was only one chapter of a long career in which he became a cherished figure in Cuban baseball.

[Photo Credit: Al Fenn/Time Life Pictures via Getty Images]

People.com http://greatideas.people.com/2014/03/31/crazy-baseball-stadium-concession-snacks/

I don’t know about you, but I was getting tired of alternating beat-downs with the other team; teams like the Red Sox and then the Angels beating and then being beaten by football scores, it just makes for bad Feng Shui.  So for the second and third game of this series, the Angels and Yankees agreed to rehearse a couple of taught dramas for the Broadway crowd, hijacking the fricken Rally Monkey with some fancy organ grinding of their own.  And grinding would be an apropos description of what The Notorious Tanaka did during the game; it was strange, yet gratifying how he managed to do his thing for 6-1/3 innings while the Yanks continued to struggle against unheralded pitchers.

Don’t get me wrong, he wasn’t bad. In the first inning all his outs were by strikeouts, all swinging; an impressive feat considering whom he was facing.  Sure, Trout continued to show his Professional Hitter side with a first pitch single after the leadoff strikeout, but then Pujols struck out behind him, and following a Howie Kendricks walk, Aybar struck out.  But the Yanks for their part decided to make Garret Richards almost equally intriguing by striking out or otherwise doing practically nothing against him.  Richards, who was averaging five walks per nine innings was giving nothing away to Tanaka, who by the second time through the lineup was now starting to get hit. When he wasn’t getting hit, he was doing something that by now could be considered very odd: he was giving up walks. Seriously, up until tonight he’d only given up two walks in total. The fourth inning was especially troublesome because he loaded the bases after a leadoff double with a HBP and a walk before the Angels pushed a run across with a fielder’s choice. Tanaka was still striking people out, but it seemed different; a lot of pitches and a lot of foul balls added to the feeling that he wasn’t dominating. Nervous business, what with G. Richards looking more like vintage J.R. Richards.

But then we learned something else about Tanaka in the process: he really doesn’t give up.  He must have realized that his other stuff wasn’t working as well as we’ve quickly grown accustomed to, so he did something subtle that I can’t get my finger on, but whatever he did, he was getting outs.  He was still striking batters out, but those seemed like an afterthought to the fact that he was getting batters out at the right time. The defense came to back him up too, turning in routine ground-outs and fly-outs (or at least making them look routine). If he gave up a triple, he struck out the next batter to end the inning. Tanaka’s control was kinda iffy, he threw a lot more in fewer innings, but he somehow got the outs when he needed them. The lineup managed to push across a run with a walk to Teixiera, who came around to score after a Brian Roberts double and a Ichiro ground-out.

Then he gave up a homer to David Freese, the hero of the 2011 St. Louis Cardinals Champeenchip, who was until then mired in an ugly slump with intermittent playing time. The way the Yanks were not hitting at that moment, you may have gotten the sense that this might be the moment Tanaka experiences his first loss in more or less two years.  Yes, it has to happen, but why against Mike Scioscia and the Angels? Ugh.. after Tanaka retired the side, the Yanks failed to score, leaving Tanaka set up for a loss. Perhaps Girardi felt bad and wanted to give Tanaka another chance to win by sending him out for the seventh, but by this time he was already hovering near 100 pitches, so after Collin Cowgill struck out, Joe took him right back out in favor of Adam Warren. Masahiro Tanaka: 6.1 innings, 5 hits (though it seemed like more), 4 walks (hmm…), 2 earned runs (huh…), and 11 strikeouts (how about that), leaving down one run.

Yet, all was apparently not lost and Warren picked up a little magic from somewhere, because after giving up another single to Trout, he got Pujols to ground into a double play and hold the line.  Next thing you know, bang, zoom! Teix hit one out and the score was tied.  Yay Tanaka wasn’t gonna lose! if nothing else, you had to feel good about that. Back in the game, now let’s get some more uhp, fergeddit, fly-outs and a pop-out and no more runs.  But you did get the sense that Richards was returning to norm, so strikeouts could soon turn into striking a hot iron.  Warren, now tasked with holding the line and perhaps getting a win, did his part in retiring the side in order, so the Yanks tried again in the eighth…

Then the funniest thing happened: Scioscia trotted out a reliever. Soon he trotted out another. Then another.  Then another and another… no, not really, but it was bad enough. See, what Scioscia already knew and hoped wouldn’t happen, and what we came to realize was that his bullpen was not very good at holding leads. Not very good at all, which was another oddity with the pitching tonight.  I’m not used to seeing a bad Angels bullpen, so I was surprised when the first reliever Michael Kohn walked Ellsbury , because yunnow, he’s Ellsbury and walking him is like giving up a double.  Kohn might’ve thought the same thing, because he spent more time stepping off and/or throwing to first than he did pitching to Jeter, who eventually struck out. But then he walked Beltran, which made Scioscia nervous and he brought in Nick Morande, who managed to throw the ball to everyone sitting behind home plate except catcher Chris Iannetta (though one was called a passed ball and Iannetta really wasn’t having a good game anyway); first Ellsbury and Beltran moved up, then Ellsbury scored, giving the Yanks the lead.  Brian McCann then gave a nifty solo scene with a HBP that was more by than hit; so convincing that the umps took a whole intermission to review the play and ultimately put him on first. Welp, time to send in the understudy, and that was Kevin Jepsen, who managed to secure a double play from our Soriano with an ug… well, sub-optimal at bat.

That brought us to what was potentially the last act, and the our new divo David The Hamma’ Roberston came to close out the show. Down went Stewart, in keeping with the theme of the night with the ubiquitous strikeout. But Iannetta walked, and his understudy John McDonald replaced him at first. J.B. Shuck managed to jive him over to second, and then… duh-duh-duhhhh our old friend Raul Ibañez came up for Cowgill.  Raul, though his average was quite low, was certainly capable of driving in a run or two as he had done 15 times beforehand.  This was indeed a scary moment, because if you lost him, you had to face the Deadly Duo, starring Mike Trout and Albert Pujols.  Robertson threw and Raul looked at strike one.  Another pitch and it was called a ball??? WTF BLUE!!!  You might also be thinking at this point, “nail him down… please!” The pitch, and Raul fouled it off.  Do it for Warren, he held it down and deserved to win it.  Do it Tanaka, he wasn’t himself tonight or what we’ve already come to expect of him, but dammit he deserved something for it. Do it because you can’t stand the Angels and particularly you can’t stand Mike Scioscia. And do it for the ones who stuck it out this long to see the win.  The Yanks haven’t had a lot of luck with close games like this over the past few years, so yeah… nail it down. The pitch… a half-swing. Did he go?

It wasn’t pretty. It didn’t look right, didn’t feel right, just didn’t seem right. But yunnow what? It tasted like chicken. Yanks win 3-2.

Growing up in Southern California, I was always struck by how few Angel fans I came across. A big part of this, of course, was the winning tradition the Dodgers had established, appearing in the World Series in 1974, ’77, and ’78 before winning it in 1981. In recent years the Angels have made inroads with increased on-field success, an ambitious marketing campaign, and a handful of flashy (if misguided) free agent signings. It also doesn’t hurt that the future of their franchise (Mike Trout) is everyone’s Golden Child, while the Dodgers’ phenom (Yasiel Puig) is more of a Problem Child.

Even so, this has always felt like Dodger Territory, and now the New York Times confirms that with the coolest interactive map you’ll ever see. Gleaning info from Facebook, researchers examined baseball team preferences in every zip code in the nation, and the result is fascinating. Two things jump out: one, the famous Munson-Nixon line separating Yankee Universe and Red Sox Nation is a bit farther east into Connecticut than previously thought; and two, there are Yankee and Red Sox fans EVERYWHERE.

I saw these two dudes on the train last night on my way home from work. They’re juniors in high school and were returning from a game–which their team won. Good kids, smart kids, very sharp about baseball. They let me take their picture.

It reminded me of when I played ball in high school, coming home after a game, my uniform muddy, the sweat dried to my body, my head still caught up in the plays of the game, maybe a ball I’d hit well, of course preoccupied with things I hadn’t done well, a ball I booted in the field, a fat pitch I swung through.

The buds are on the trees now in New York. That, and the dirt on these kids’ uniforms, is a reminder that winter is over.

Beautiful photograph by Paul Meleschnig via MPD.