Day: June 15, 2004

(This was originally supposed to go up last week, but got pushed back a bit.)

RedbirdNation, a highly enjoyable St. Louis Cardinals blog, tried to determine which sports teams were the Kings of the various MLB cities – what was the importance of the different teams to the people who lived there. I found it interesting, because they went through the effort of trying to get in touch with people in those different cities to get their takes on the situation, making it more authentic than just an outsider taking guesses. The order of teams were predictable in some place (NY’s #1 as the Yankees was the easiest call) but also unexpected in places (Tampa’s #5 as the Yankees).

Like I’m sure plenty of other people did, I read through the sections on other teams and patiently waited for my city to come up, so I could disagree. It’s a list, right, so that’s the point.

Luckily enough, when they got to Chicago, I wasn’t disappointed. I did have plenty of room to disagree. Here’s their list:

Continue reading “King of Chicago”

Thing I hate about MVP Baseball #243: You do not get credit for 3 innings saves.

Cubs 7 – Astros 2, Yahoo.

Christian @ The Cub Reporter hits a point I thought the post-game coverage missed last night: as great as Prior and Todd Walker were, the MVP of the game was Jimmy Anderson. If he struggled before the ninth and forced the Cubs to start using the rest of the pen, Astros stood a chance of coming all the way back. Remmy gave the tough guy’s line about always having an extra inning left, but they probably would’ve been really ugly innings.

I thought it was a huge risk not calling up Sergio or Wuertz, but it worked out great; besides the pen break, Anderson’s proven himself valuable (a neccisity if you’re going to be used on a Baker team, see Dubois, Jason) and everyone else got rested. Good move.

I think they still could use another night without much pen usage (three of four games isn’t really much better than two straight games), but with Carlos going 120+ pitches last time out, things may get intersting.

BTW, I hope Dusty was kidding about playing Hollandsworth, Sosa and Alou the same time in the outfield. I know Todd’s got a hot bat, but that’s gonna be a horrible defensive outfield. They all make dramatic catches, but the plays are dramatic because they’re slow, not because they’re good. They also shouldn’t take out Walker if he’s still going to hit like this, but I’ve got lesser hopes for logic there.