November 18, 2024

Play Ball!!!

Ryan Howard will again hit more home runs than any other National League player and Johan Santana will win the NL Cy Young award.

Not exactly upsets, there. More intriguing picks run in more intriguing categories. Who will be the first manager fired? The first GM? Who will be the breakout hitters and pitchers? The free-agent flops? How many victories will the Yankees get from CC Sabathia in the first year of that landmark $161 million deal?

My Predictions for personal awards

5698ny-giants-starters-opening-day-baseball-photo-new-york-ny-posters

AL MVP – Josh Hamilton

NL MVP – David Wright

AL Cy Young – Josh Beckett

NL Cy Young – Johan Santana

AL Rookie of the Year – Matt Wieters

NL Rookie of the Year – Jordan Shaefer

My Team predictions

AL Pennant Winner – NY Yankees

NL Pennant Winner – Los Angeles Dodgers

World Series Winner – New York Yankees

It’s Going, Going … Did You See Where It Went?

The Mets and the Yankees together have spent more than $2 billion on new stadiums partly to bring fans much closer to the action. But that access comes at a cost. For the best views, fans will have to pay eye-popping prices to sit on the field level and in the decks behind home plate in seats angled toward the infield.

Fans on tighter budgets, though, will have to settle for seats in far-off sections, some of which have obstructed views of the field.

Mets fans learned this the hard way on Sunday, when St. John’s and Georgetown played the first game at Citi Field. Steven Gottesman, who has a 15-game ticket plan, went to see his four seats in Section 533, Row 15, near the top of the upper deck down the left-field line. To his “shock and horror,” he could not see the warning track or about 20 feet of the outfield from the left-field line to center field.

“In other words, I will only know if a home run is hit if I am listening to a radio at the game or I wait to see the sign from the umpire,” Gottesman, 45, said in an e-mail message. “If Endy Chávez made his catch in this new stadium and I had been there, I would not have seen it.”

Some Yankee fans will have it even worse. That is because the 1,048 bleacher seats in Sections 201 and 239 have views partly blocked by the walls of the Mohegan Sun Sports Bar, which sits above Monument Park behind the center-field fence. Fans in Section 201, for instance, will not be able to see left field and, in some cases, even third base.

ny-yankeesThe Yankees are mounting five flat-panel screens on each side of the restaurant’s outer walls so fans can see on television what they miss live. After Newsday reported that these sections had obstructed views, the Yankees said they would charge $5 for seats there, less than the $12 that season-ticket holders will pay for other bleacher seats.

Alice McGillion, a spokeswoman for the Yankees, said obstructed-view seats were always supposed to cost $5 and that an invoicing problem led to the mix-up that had them originally being offered for more than twice as much. (The Yankees’ Web site does not reflect the new, lower prices.) Fans there will also get access to other parts of the park and to the Bleachers Café, which is above the sports bar.

“In the old stadium, you had no place to eat and you came in and stayed there,” McGillion said, adding that fans will be able to buy beer, which was not sold in recent years in the bleachers at the old stadium. “People can get up and watch the entire game from the cafe, plus there will be TVs.”

As for the Mets, they continue to maintain that there are no obscured-view seats in Citi Field, despite what some fans were contending after Sunday’s game. Fans might miss a play or two, the Mets conceded. But, they added, the game action will be replayed on the scoreboards and the fans are closer to the field to begin with.

“Whenever you bring seating closer to the action, and put seating in fair territory, there will be certain angles where you lose a sightline here or there,” said Dave Howard, the Mets’ vice president for business operations. “That’s typical in new ballparks, but a little different for our customers because Shea didn’t have much of anything like that.”

Howard admitted that the seats in Section 533 are angled in such a way that fans will be unable to see the warning track and some of the field. He said the team has no plans to lower its ticket prices or label the seats in question as having obscured views.

Seats in many ballparks have blind spots. But Mets and Yankees fans are angry now because the teams did not tell them about the obstructed views before they sold them the tickets. Until recently, fans could not visit the stadiums and had to rely on three-dimensional representations on the teams’ Web sites.

“How they ended up building brand new stadiums and not realize this is a head-scratcher,” said Jim Holzman, president of Ace Ticket, the official reseller of Boston Red Sox tickets. “Here they are with all these high-end seats to sell and they dropped the ball on the cheaper seats.”

The Red Sox, Holzman said, routinely mark their tickets when the seats have obstructed views. That helps the first fans who buy them, but does not necessarily inform fans who buy them when they are resold on StubHub and other ticket-selling sites. That means Mets and Yankees fans who buy their tickets from these sites could be in for a shock, too.

The problem is thornier for the Mets because Citi Field has only 42,000 seats, 26 percent fewer than at Shea Stadium. (The new Yankee Stadium will have 53,000 seats, a 5 percent decrease.) At Shea, seats in the last rows of the loge and mezzanine decks were discounted because the roofs above them obscured views of the field.

But because Shea was so much larger, opportunistic fans could often find better seats sometimes just a few rows away. With far fewer seats at Citi Field, some fans may end up standing in concourses to get better views.

Fans in the bleachers in the old Yankee Stadium, which was routinely sold out, learned to compromise.

“You were clearly giving up views and really being able to call balls and strikes and see close plays,” said Jason Fenton, who had season tickets in the right-field bleachers until 2005. “I would clearly prefer three rows behind the dugout. But you’re buying the tickets in the hope that you can go to the World Series.”

And while the Yankees may have disappointed some fans in the new bleacher seats, the team stands to earn money from the naming rights to the Mohegan Sun Sports Bar and the food sold inside and above it. And fans seem to be willing to put up with their seats’ defects if the price is right. Those $5 bleacher seats at Yankee Stadium are sold out for the season.

There are 2 WBC Champs.. Do you care?

Vitali Klitschko stopped Juan Carlos Gomez in the ninth round Saturday night, easily retaining his WBC heavyweight title. Did you even know?.. Do you care?

The 37-year-old champion twice put down the Germany-based Cuban defector, in the seventh and ninth rounds, before the referee Daniel Van de Wiele stopped the fight with 1 minute, 11 seconds remaining in the round.

How far as boxing fallen from the US scene? When Iron Mike was kicking ass and biting ears we all wanted to see what would happen next in any of his fights.. even the last few when his mystique was gone. With MMA etc.. boxing has not only taken a back seat but it isnt even in the car.

The other WBC Champs are the Japanese…again. They are now 2 for 2 in WBC baseball championships.  Again the US audience showed that this is not really something we care about and our players looked the same on the field.

Why does this tournament even have to be played during March when there is nothing making the event appealing. lets see… March Madness or International baseball?… Ill take hoops for $1000 Alex..

Lets try and have this in Feb or even better during the All Star break and maybe, just maybe we will give a hoot.. and for Boxing.. well even though Don King ruined the sport I sure do miss his shenanigans.

I had no idea…

Does anyone remember the young man who was traded from one minor league team to another last year for some baseball bats? At the time it seemed like quite the joke or maybe just a publicity stunt by the minor league teams. Whatever the case it definitely gained national exposure for John Odom who was the pitcher involved in the trade. I can vividly remember his interivew on PTI where on the outside he seemed to be trying to play it off, but something didn’t quite seem right with him overall throughout the interview. It seems the trade could have had an impact on him because late last year he had a drug overdose and died. No one knows for sure if this is what lead him down a destructive path, but one would have to think it certainly didn’t help. Check out the full ESPN article below. So sad!

The John Odom story

Dodgers Win

Manny Ramirez signs with the Dodgers

After on again off again talks for what seems like a year Manny finally agreed on a 2 year $45 million deal with the Dodgers. I can’t believe Scott Boras finally gave in, but I guess you have to when there isn’t one other suitor wanting your player. The real winner in this deal is Los Angeles because without Manny they are a boring .500 ball club, but with him they are exciting and meaningful. Say what you will, but until Manny stepped into LA last year the Dodgers were about as cool as watching paint dry. With him they were able to upset the Chicago Cubs in the first round of playoffs who were considered to be the best in the NL. Now I don’t know if Manny will give it his all this year, but if he does then LA should have an enjoyable summer.

StonecoldJZ’s Sound Off

Phil Fulmer

* Phil Fulmer stepped down today as head coach of Tennessee after starting off this season 3-6 overall and 1-5 in the SEC. It was no more than a year ago Phillip signed a huge contract extension yet after this season his job will be done. The Volunteers definitely aren’t the same program they were 5 to 10 years ago and this shows just how cutthroat SEC fans are with their football coaches. I expect Lane Kiffin will be receiving a call very soon.

* Derek Anderson has been benched for the Browns game this Thursday against Denver. While the Browns receivers have dropped countless passes this year I still feel this move makes a lot of sense for Cleveland. Romeo Crennel knows his job is on the line and at 3-5 it’s time to make a change. Brady Quinn should fill in nicely, but let’s face it the Browns season is done for this year anyway.

* Texas at Texas Tech this past Saturday was an instant classic! I only wish all games that receive the hype that game received could come through with such flying colors.

* Allen Iverson was traded to the Pistons ftoday or Chauncey “Big Shot” Billups, Antonio McDyess and some other unknown. I respect Dumars and I think he has done a good job as the GM for the Pistons, but this move leaves me scratching my head. Billups is so clutch and has been the heart and soul of the Pistons for the last few years. Now you bring in a shooting guard in Iverson when you already have Rip Hamilton at that position? Something is about to change in Detroit Rock City and I don’t think it’s for the good.

* The Brewers picked up Mike Cameron’s $10 million dollar option today. $10 million for Cameron, seriously??? How in the blue hell does a washed up bum like Cameron still get this kind of chingy?

Philly Fan Gone Wild

The Phillies closed out the World Series last night and then it was party time in the city of brotherly love. Check out this fan climbing on a street sign and then getting whacked with a bottle. Classic!

***World Series celebration video***

Kent Hrbek Outdoors

I’m a big fan of the Twins and when you think of Minnesota the player that immediately comes to mind for me is Kent Hrbek. Hrbek was a big reason why the Twinkies won the ’87 and ’91 World Series along with Kirby Puckett and Jack Morris. Well, it seems these days Herbie loves outdoor activities and he even has his own outdoor TV show. I’m already a fan of the show and better yet Hrbek looks A LOT like my friend Scott Chase. 🙂

MLB Bet of the Day – October 22

Phillies/Rays over 7.5

Overall Record:

NFL 80-45-3
College Football: 69-63-1
MLB 20-10
College Basketball 102-69-6
NHL 0-1
NBA 28-20

World Series Prediction

World Series Trophy

We hit our Rays/Sox series prediction right on the nose, but we didn’t see the Phillies beating the Dodgers. All in all we correctly guessed 4 out of the 6 winners and were able to nail 3 of the 6 series down to the exact game. That being said, it’s time to predict the World Series which kicks off tonight in Tampa, Florida. I’m sure the media along with Fox Network would prefer a much higher profile series, but I actually think we are in for a wonderful seven game series. When all is said and done the Tampa Rays win the series 4 games to 3 and successfully come from dead last in the MLB last year to World Series champs this year. Book it!