The Mariners’ broadcast team does a “Pick to Click” feature where they highlight a player they believe is due for a notable performance. Last Sunday in Toronto, Mariners color guy Mike Blowers pegged Matt Tuiasosopo to hit his first major league home run. But Blowers didn’t just call the home run. He said Tui would go yard on a 3-1 fastball in his second at bat. Blowers further predicted the home run would be to left center and get to the second deck.

And that’s exactly what happened. Check the link for the enjoyable audio.

Bombs!

Call of the Year – Shannon Drayer (MyNorthwest.com)

With the Big Unit getting win #300 last night, it’s funny to think how long the guy has been around since the M’s unloaded him to Houston in 1998.   That trade seems like decades ago (oh wait, it was) so maybe you’ve forgotten some of the details of it.  Let’s recap, shall we?

Remember how Randy Johnson put David Segui on the disabled list because he was pissed that Segui wouldn’t turn down his rap music in the clubhouse?  AND he went after him again when Segui made disparaging remarks about him to Jay Buhner?

Remember that he pouted and refused to talk to the media until the deal finally went down?

Remember that he was actually traded mid-game?

Remember how everyone bashed the deal for Freddy Garcia, John Halama and Carlos Guillen, with GM Woody Woodward going to the media to defend himself by saying:

“The best deal I had available was two months ago (with the Dodgers, Ismael Valdes, Wilton Guerrero and minor-league pitcher Ted Lilly), and the organization decided not to make it.”

Yikes.  And we thought the Freddy deal was bad.  Note that Woodward was also lusting after Dave Burba.

Remember how the Randy Johnson deal was actually part of the Mark Langston deal, which was similarly reviled?

Call me crazy, but even with 130/300 of those wins coming with the M’s, I don’t see Randy going into Cooperstown in a Seattle cap.  Of course, in a perfect world he’d go in wearing a pigeon on his head anyway.

So I was listening to ESPNSeattle (It’s not Furness!) on my way to work Thursday afternoon, taking in the carnage after Brandon Morrow blew his second save in 17 hours. An older gentleman called in to share his take on the Bombs.

“This team…we’re still coming out of the Bavasi era. And he signed a lot of…Humpty Dumptys like Silva…(unintelligible)”

At first I delighted in the ramblings of this possibly senile Mariner fan. Old people? The best!

But then I got to thinking. This guy is exactly right. The Mariners are chalk full of fucking Humpty Dumptys.

When reached for comment Bill Bavasi responded, “Listen. I don’t know what you want from me. All I tried to do was give Humpty a chance.”

ALERT: STOP READING NOW.

Side note. I used to listen to something called “the radio” and a show called the American Top 40. What’s more I would record little mixes on something called “blank cassettes”. One particular Saturday I spent hours chasing down Snap’s The Power. I dug the militant thing apparently, as well as men’s suits with shoulder pads.

Long story short I recorded U Can’t Touch This but it got cut off a little because it was the end of side one. I was a little bummed, but the Humpty Dance immediately followed after the “commercial break” to lead off side two.

That’s right, Humpty Dance was briefly ahead of the world beating U Can’t Touch This for at least one week on the Top 40. I bet if I wanted to spend ten minutes I could pinpoint the exact week. It ended up working out perfectly, because MC Hammer (the MC stands for Master of Ceremonies!) was beginning an era of ridiculous radio saturation. And I got the full version of the song I ended up liking better.

Humpty Dance also included a memorable Hammer reference, “Crazy wack funky/people said “You look like MC Hammer on crack, Humpty!” But since this song was on the charts at the same time as Hammer, this was likely a reference to earlier MC Hammer joint “Let’s Get It Started.”

Unable to pinpoint the exact week because Billboard charges $20 a month for chart history. Add that to the list of When I Win The Lottery purchases.

Oh to be a fly on the wall for Hammer’s post IRS audit house cleaning. Lots of hard decisions. “I’m firm on this! There’s no way I’m doing a show with less than two dozen backup dancers! Wait, you can’t take THOSE! They are my pants! THEY ARE NAMED AFTER ME!!”

Random 5 singles from the mix tapes of my youth:

T.U.R.T.L.E. Power – Partners in Kryme

I don’t remember if the acronym stood for anything. I just know it got repeated a lot. Also, one of my first memories of fellow H&Fer Sager Bombs was when we played on the same mod soccer team (size of field, not like The Who). We went to different schools so I didn’t know him that well. He attributed a good play he made to Pizza Power. I had never heard of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles at that point so I had no idea what he was talking about. But the reference marked him as one to watch.

This was the first movie I ever saw multiple times in the theater. Remind me of this when I eventually have kids and am bitching about taking them to crappy movies.

Fairweather Friend – Johnny Gill

Looking back, I think Johnny Gill might have been gay. But it was the early 90s. Anything went, so who knows? I didn’t start listening to bands with white people in them until the late 90s. And even then it was The Beatles. I needed to be eased in. I used to think the chorus of this song went “I wanna be your fairweather friend…”. I wasn’t familiar with the phrase, but it sounded like a nice enough thing to be. (This video has one minute of nonsense at the beginning before the song starts.)

Do Anything – Natural Selection

I consider this to be one of the great lost singles of the early 90s. I think I ended up with this cd on permanent loan from some girl. When he declares that he would do anything for the girl’s love, she immediately responds “Would you take me for a funky ride?” Whoa! Slow down honey. I meant “anything” like “anything reasonable”. Let’s not blow our load right out of the gate. This song also has a four bar rap on the bridge. Back in the 90s you only needed to have 4 bars to make it in the rap game. Why don’t people insert bridge rap into R&B songs anymore? I could handle those. They helped acclimate me to the scary black people.

Opposites Attract – Paula Abdul feat. MC Skat Cat

(Embedding disabled)

The greatest crime of the 80s? Not Iran Contra. Not Coke II. It’s the fact that the album version of Opposites Attract did not have the rapping cat. That’s when I realized the world wasn’t fair. Between this and Amy Grant’s “Good For Me” the turn of the 80s to the 90s were salad days for songs about people with nothing in common finding love.

Me So Horny – 2 Live Crew

On vacation in my youth I was in a rental car somewhere in Tennessee and this song came on the radio. I loved it and wanted to listen to it. My parents and grandparents? Not so much. But they fucking froze. It’s like they didn’t want to acknowledge this was racy so I would like it more. So we listened to the song despite their complaints that it was just the same thing over and over. I wish I remembered the moment where I realized how awkward that must have been. I bet I laughed. Heartily.

This has been The Early 90s Remembered with Constable Echelon. Thanks for watching.

Image: daylife.com

King Felix comes out of the gate shit hot every April proving to all that he is NEXTNOW! Once that’s breathlessly established over the first couple weeks on Baseball Tonight everyone accepts it as a given and moves on. Yet despite noticeably improved fitness as his career has matured year to year, Felix wastes no time getting into the dog days.

I consider 2007 to be the advent of the modern Felix era. As you recall he slaughtered Oakland out of the gate and followed it up by hurling a one pitch shutout on the road in Daisuke Matsuzaka’s debut at Fenway.

Two games. 17 Innings. 18 Ks. 4 hits. 4 walks. ZERO runs. This is the gospel of the King.

The 2007, 2008, and 2009 seasons show disturbing trends regarding Felix’s effectiveness once the calendar switches to the second month of the season. This regression to mortal status manifests itself in three areas: WHIP, IP, and the old Win Loss column.

WHIP ((Walks+Hits)/Innings Pitched) is valued by sabermetricians for its ability to more directly measure a pitcher’s effectiveness on a per batter basis than the venerable ERA ((ER/IP)*9). A WHIP in the neighborhood of or below 1 denotes a brutally effective pitcher, who is allowing less than or about one base runner per inning. April Felix over the past three seasons has posted WHIPs of (starting in 2k7) 0.47, 1.23, and 1.09. These numbers confirm what we know to be true, that Felix is elite.

In May Felix’s WHIP has been consistently higher to the tune of 2.00 (+1.06), 1.53 (+0.3), and 1.90 (+0.81). The consequences are simply that Felix is allowing more baserunners per inning in May than April and as such the opposition has a better chance to score.

The raised WHIP in May affects the King’s ability to stay in the game, and his Average Innings Pitched dramatically declines. More people get on base = more pitches thrown = Felix leaves earlier. April Felix has averaged 8.5, 7.45, and 6.8 innings per start over the past three seasons.

In May those numbers drop to 5 (-3.5), 6.22 (-1.23), and 5 (-1.8) innings pitched. This has the effect of self selecting our best player out of the game. It also tires out the bullpen for when they really need to be rested (ie when anyone else is pitching).

The ultimate effect of this regression shows up in the statistic that matters most, the W/L column. Over the past three seasons Felix is 8-2 in April decisions; 2-8 in May. For games Felix has started over the past three seasons the Mariners are 10-4 in April; 4-8 in May.

I have no suggestions for Felix Hernandez regarding ways to improve his effectiveness in May other than, “Uh…be better?” I do however think the numbers show that May Felix suffers somewhat from a lapse in focus. This lapse could be easily attributed to dominating in April. It’s as if he is saying, “Oh yes, I am still great. Back to coasting.” Perhaps just becoming aware of this trend will be enough for him to correct the anomaly. Lord knows he has the talent.

Make no mistake, May Felix is still a very good pitcher. He’s just not FELIX. The next stage of his development will be finding a way to translate his April mastery through the month of May. Here’s hoping that starts Thursday against Texas.

Problems: In 2007 Felix had a third start in April that I cut out of the analysis because he left after 1/3 of an inning with an injury that would keep him out for a month. This limited his April, 2007 sample to those two insane starts at the beginning of the year. Also, one could reasonably assume that it took Felix a few weeks to find his groove again in May. I have less of an issue including those numbers because he was cleared to play, and the sample included a healthy four games from that month (including San Diego and Kansas City…not exactly the ’27 Yankees).

Obviously May, 2009 has a limited sample size as it has yet to be completed.

And of course any statistical analysis from this blog is inherently problematic as we are primarily a forum for dick jokes, and publicizing how terrible Adam Morrison is.

Stats: baseballreference.com

In his much publicized interview with Mike and Mike this morning, Roger Clemens said that he did not take steriods and further stated that it would be “Suicidal” for him to take performance enhancing drugs due to a family history of heart conditions.   To support this contention, Clemens cited the fact that his brother had a heart attack in his late 40′s and that Clemens’ step-dad also died from a heart attack.  

Now I’m no heart-a-matologist, but I’m fairly confident that you can’t contract heart conditions from your step parents.  Maybe I’m wrong about that.  (Props to Colin Cowherd for catching this and jumping on it almost as soon as the Mike and Mike interview had ended).

Thank you Mariners for getting this season’s first Rip Your Balls Off Special ™ out of the way early. There will be no “I can’t believe I fell for these assholes” revelations this summer. Because that was it Tuesday night, when the Mariners squandered a two run, two out, two strike, nobody on, 9th inning lead. Yes, it was that bad.

I hope Minnesota’s grounds crew would be so kind as to return Brandon Morrow’s confidence to the lost and found should it congeal after melting into the HHH Metrodome turf. Masterstroke by Wakamatsu to yank him there too after Morrow walked the sacks drunk. Here in late September there’s no time to fuck around trying to gauge a player’s mental toughness. Wait, you’re telling me there are 160 more games?!? Uh oh.

I was 75% over this team before pitchers and catchers reported. Now I’m 90+%. Prove me wrong, Bombs. I won’t hold my breath. Besides, it’s really unfair to take games from an injury riddled Twins squad. They actually have a prayer.

And one more Twinkie video for the road. I can’t believe this song.

The first few games of the baseball season are always exciting and a blast to attend, mostly because things are still new and every team has that misguided belief that just maybe they can sneak into the playoffs.  I’d be pretty pissed to have tickets to the second game of the season up in Toronto if I found out that the provincial government banned beer sales for the game as punishment for license violations at the stadium.

Um… what the fuck?

BJ fans (hee hee) aren’t dummies though.  They’ve responded by… apparently staying home and drinking instead.  Ticket sales are at a whopping 15,000 – less than a third of last night’s attendance and about half the total for the same game last year.  Either they don’t want to sneak in booze and risk a major league mountie search or they don’t know about the Papa Bert Sippin Seat in Canada.  For shame.