The 2010 Giants: They can't hit or run but at least their fielding is terrible.

Friday saw the triumphant appearance of G Snide to our group (he drove out Thursday night) and we rocked the Giants/Indians game in Scottsdale for the early tilt.  Impressions: Scottsdale is nice…right next to ASU and we all know ASU has nice ladies (not that I’m looking of course, I’m just saying).  Grady Sizemore looks alive and ready to contribute, Eugenio Velez covers a lot of ground in Center for the Giants and those blessed Giants’ fans are just as delusional as ever.  “I can really see us winning the West this year,” the guy in front of us kept saying to his buddy.  This after a rousing bit of applause for the likes of Aubrey Huff, Juan Uribe and the various other hounds they have in their lineup.  That is just a bad, bad assemblage of talent–Pablo Sandoval (my third round fantasy pick) slapped (or “savanted”, if you’re G Snide) an oppo blooper into left for a single and then scored from first on a triple, cutting his shin and leaving the game for stitches on his slide into home.  With him off of the field there’s really not even an average bat in the entire lineup.  Buster Posey did get a late at bat so at least we got a glimpse of the future, for whatever that’s worth.

The afternoon consisted of a stop in Glendale where the first of two Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives was rocked.  The menu is German and since I’d just had a giant Brat at the Giants’ park I went with a salad.  And was made fun of.  Repeatedly.  Normally I would make fun of myself too but with free vouchers for a hot dog at the Reds game that night it just seemed like overkill on the wiener situation.

Al Soriano: Player voted "least likely to end up on my fantasy team" three years running

Ah, Goodyear, Arizona.  Home of the worst parking lot in the Cactus League as well as John B’s traffic ticket from the year before…needless to say JC was nonplussed about the whole affair and threatened to not drive us there/intentionally crash the car in order to avoid the whole thing.  Luckily, this time around we had everything pretty much wired.  We arrived early (!) so we killed 30 minutes playing waffle ball in the parking lot (always a win) and then followed that up by a game that involved Milton Bradley’s ejection (shocker) and some SERIOUS bombs by Lance Nix, Jay Bruce and an inside-the-park job by Drew Stubbs (move him up your draft board).  The Seattle team was also pretty sick with Ichiro and Chone generating some serious speed at the top of the order.  The highlight was easily J’s foul ball off Jack Wilson’s bat in the 9th.  By the end of the game there were probably only a few thousand people on hand so our odds of coming up with a souvenir were about as high as they were going to get.  With two outs Wilson hit a screamer that was tracking all four of us in our mostly deserted section-the ball drilled J right in the hand and then caromed a few rows back where it was one-handed by some surprised kid.  As we all got up to exit a few minutes later the kid flipped the ball to J in the ultimate reversal of fortune.  Needless to say that thing was tossed around the lot for a good half hour afterward.  The night ended with more wiffle in the parking lot while we waited for the snarl to clear up.  Good times, Goodyear.

Saturday was our last day and started (after the waffle bar, of course) in Mesa for a Cubs/Royals tilt.  The Royals are every bit as bad as you’d expect, sorry JC.  Outside of Billy Butt there’s almost zero offense on that squad.  There’s a few arms that look promising (Greg couldn’t stop talking about some no-name lefty that threw 2 shutdown innings and I’m sure will find a way onto his fantasy team at some point) but seriously how is J. Soria going to get any saves this year?  That team is a travesty.  Carlos Zambrano pitched pretty well for Chicago but again, it’s tough to get a good gauge for how dirty he was when he’s going up against KC.  19 year old top prospect Starlin Castro made a short appearance for the Cubbies and popped out in his only AB.

The second DD&D was also in Glendale and this place was called Thee Pitts and was, as you’d expect, a BBQ joint.  The food was solid-average, not much different than you’d find at a place like Woody’s in Goleta only they did have deep fried pickles, so that’s a win.  JC was of course down on the whole thing because nobody does BBQ like they do in the Midwest and have sampled the goods in both Omaha and Memphis I’d have to agree with him.  Also 15 minutes after I ate the food was exiting my ass at 50 mph in the bathroom of a Borders.  My apologies to Borders, all of their employees and shareholders.

The final port of call was at Camelback for a showdown of NL West powerhouses-the Dodgers and the Padres.  With a lefty on the bump for the Pads the Dodgers sported an all-righty lineup which boasted Belliard at First in place of Loney and Reed Johnson instead of Ethier in Right.  Easily one of the most tragic lineups I’ve seen.  The Whale’s Vagina, of course, was worse-outside of A Gonz and soon-to-be megastar Kyle Blanks there’s nothing worthwhile to see here.  Oh, speaking of Blanks: not only did he rip 3 hits he also stole a bag…watching a 6’7″, 280 lb man barreling down towards second (and beating the throw) is both awesome and terribly, terribly sad.  How you can’t throw that guy out is beyond me.  The Dodgers actually managed a meager two hits the entire game and it was a total bust as far as offense goes…Manny did hit 3 warning track bombs which is either a good sign or a bad sign, depending on how full your glass is.  The highlight of the game was easily the Jimmy Nunez appearance.  Does running into Berluti ever get old?  My sources say no.  And now that he’s sporting a handlebar mustachio the good times never end.  Actually, that’s not true-our good times ended just a few innings later, followed by another spirited game of wiffleball and some Frisbee in the parking lot.

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

A Long Ways From Home / Civilization

The drive back the next morning was just as brutal as you’d imagine-spotty radio coverage during the basketball tournament, mildly obnoxious traffic outside of Riverside and again at LAX, but really how can I complain?  I wasn’t at work and I was watching baseball with some of my best friends.  Really the only complaint is with the Dodgers themselves…it’s going to be a long season, friends and on top of everything else our owner is a total bastard it sounds like.  Camelback is incredible and the whole Spring Training vibe has to be experienced first hand at some point.  See ya next year, Phoenix.

What the desert looks like at 80 mph

One second after this photo was taken Hamilton hit a ball one kajillion miles

Hello friends,

I’m lounging around in a post waffle bar haze with the boys while we figure out where we’re going today…pretty sure it’s Scottsdale in the morning for the Giants vs. Reds and then maybe Seattle vs. Milwaukee for the nightcap.  Yesterday was good times, perfect weather, lots of scoring including a bomb by Manny that landed about 20 feet from us and a home run from Josh Hamilton that was last seen somewhere over Mesa’s airspace.  We also hit a mini-milestone, arriving in time for the National Anthem before the Rangers game–first time yet.  Well done, JC.

Because all of the Satan Beelzebub t-shirts were sold out

Camelback was every bit as nice as I remembered it, only downside was that a) there were billions of people there (game set a record for Cactus League attendance)  b) Cubs fans are pasty.  Speaking of Cubs fans, what do you make of this lady who showed up wearing a Milton Bradley Mariners jersey to a Cubs game?  Why would somebody do something like that?  I wanted to make her my girlfriend but I got too nervous to ask her because she is so perfect.  If only I’d gotten to her 5 years and 80 pounds ago.  Alas.

Billingsley pitched for the Dodgers and sadly looked like Chad Billingsley.  What else did we see…um…Soriano, Chris Davis, Rickie Weeks and Corey Heart all swing at everything and miss often but Corey Heart did spend 15 minutes signing autographs for everybody who wanted one so that’s pretty cool.

I’m going to see if I can steal another waffle and sit in the pool for a little bit before we head out of here.  Big ups, suckers.

J and I are headed out right after work to meet up with JC who will of course be completely unpacked, insist on taking a shower and then blow drying his hair and then getting gas all while mumbling something along the lines of, “Oh, really?  Today is when we’re doing this?  Shoot:man, I wish I’d known it was today:I have all these things I was going to do tomorrow:man:shoot, well, I mean:yeah, I guess I can still go:just let me get some stuff together:what sport are we watching again?”  Somewhere Jeff Greenfield is nodding silently towards his computer.

Expect updates and photos along the way, friends.

Windows Live Photo Gallery is like Photoshop for dummies

Yeah so if those little small girls in those Windows commercials can make a panorama photo of their forts or whatever then I can make one of some spring training stadiums by God.  Here’s a few more for your viewing pleasure because I am a PC and I am 30 years old.

You know who is gordo?  People from Wisconsin.  Do you know why?  Because they let their children eat fried turkey legs like they are french fries, that’s why.  And yes, I was a little small bit jealous when I saw those turkey sticks of goodness–my generic old hot dog just didn’t have the same cache.

Mmmm...delicious turkey leg. Nom nom nom nom nom...

This girl literally CRIED when her dad walked back from the turkey store without a leg of her very own.

I read this story the other day and it made me sad and I don’t even have kids or anything.  If I had kids I would be flipping the F out right now.  Forget about the animals for just one second and ask yourself what kind of world are we leaving our kids?  Go humans!

Finally, and most imp0rtantly, I felt like my fantasy draft went ok.  I had the 11th pick (of 11 managers) so that was rough.  Our league is a 6×6 mixed (H, R, RBI, HR, STL OBP and W, K WHIP, ERA, QS, SVS) and I ended up with two Dodgers–Matt Kemp (4th round after taking Carlos Quentin, which I was happy about) and James Loney (17th round).  Loney figures to play in my INF slot until someone else emerges or until I get sick of him.  He was spraying line drives around the greater Phoenix area which was nice.  What’s Loney’s upside anyway?  Is he destined to become another Will Clark?  A nice fielding first baseman who will flirt with a .300 BA and maybe knock 20 out of the yard?  Geez, actually after looking at The Thrill’s career what happened there?  He was like the anti-steroid guy…drops 35 bombs in his second year in the league and then reverts into a sub-20 HR first baseman who takes lots of walks.  Weird.  I used to have like 3 autographed Will Clark baseball cards when I was little.  Hated the Giants but loved The Thrill.  Anyway friends, it’s almost time for Friday Night Lights and after the fireworks from last week’s episode you know I’m not going to miss out on this action.

Sightlines

The Mexicutioner, John B and myself left Phoenix yesterday and endured the 7 million mile drive back to civilization and immediately jumped into our 2009 Fantasy Baseball draft, a 5 hour affair held via the magic of the interweb.  I’ll get to everything else on a later post but here’s what happened during our final day in the horrifying squalor beauty of Goodyear, Arizona.  First of all, getting from Phoenix to Goodyear may seem like a trivial matter but good God it is a long way out there and but eventually we stumbled upon the home of the Indians and Reds after mistaking not one but two high schools for the ballpark.  After enduring the most Mickey Mouse parking situation of all time (at least in Surprise they didn’t charge us $5) which the Mexicutioner described as “The U-Turn of Death” we arrived in the 2nd inning, our have-yet-to-arrive-for-The-National-Anthem streak securely intact at a whopping 4 games.  Whatever, first innings are lame anyway.

The game was nice and featured a good comeback win by your Los Angeles Dodgers, sparked by a massive home run to left by Russ Mart.  I still don’t see him as a middle of the order bat and would feel much better if they permanently penciled him into the 2 or 7 slot but it might have been the hardest hit ball we saw all weekend.  Also of note was 9th inning man Charlie Haeger, a knuckleballer who is fun (if not terribly effective) to watch.  Sadly getting out of the stadium was again an exercise in futility which ended with a not-so-fun confrontation with Arizona’s finest.  The rest of the day was spent with Bud Lights, Outback Steakhouse and the last round of NCAA games.  Do Saturdays get any better?  I say no.

J. Martin--Get Used to It

Sunday involved the aforementioned drive of death which included a stop in the lovely city of Quartzsite, Arizona which makes Blythe, CA look like Paris, France.  Never have I been so terrified in a small town as I was in Quartzsite.  Have you ever seen a Burger King with a “Please do not bring weapons into this establishment” sign on the front door?  Neither have I.  On the plus side, if you are in the market for a Confederate Flag, I have just the store for you.  You stay classy, Quartzsite.  Look for some photoshopped ballpark pics and fantasy sports talk coming your way tomorrow…I’m back in the office so lord knows I have nothing to do.  Big ups to John B and el Eme–J and G Slim, we’ll get it going next year mis amigos.

True Believers

Dia de dos of our trip to Phoenix started very similar to day one–we again had to wait for John B to take care of his “errands” which apparently involved some sort of high finance, and by high finance I mean something that you can’t just do at an ATM.  Who actually goes into banks?  I don’t think I’ve been inside of a bank in probably 10 years.  John B is crazed.  When he finally got back to the hotel to pick up The Mexicutioner and myself it was a short twenty minute jaunt out to Peoria, where the Mariners and Padres share a nice facility that is oddly enough in the middle of a strip mall.  No joke, you could foul a ball off and have it land in either a Hooters or a Famous Dave’s, no problem.  We kept our streak of missing the first inning alive which is no big loss except for the fact that we had lawn seating for the game, which meant that by the time we found a few square yards of grass the sightlines were somewhat limited.  I think normally it wouldn’t have been too bad but since the Mariners were playing the Brewers there were a lot of people from Milwaukee there which roughly count as 1.5-2 people based on their sheer mass.  CC Sabathia really should have just stayed there.  To be honest I’m not really sure who even ended up winning the game but Ken Junior did hit a two run bomb in his final AB and got a standing ovation every time he came to the plate, which was nice to see.

After a quick lunch (and by quick I mean roughly 90 minutes to get our enchiladas but again we had to wait 30 minutes for John B to attend to meeting someone that he knew was in town) it was back on the freeway to the 6:00 Royals-Dodgers game in Surprise Stadium, aka THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE.  Sadly you cannot take a freeway to THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE but have to drive in stop and go traffic for 45 minutes on surface streets along with every single other person from Southern California who thought going to THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE sounded like a good idea as well.  Of course we arrived in the second inning but the complex itself was gorgeous and I would put it on par with Cambel Back if there was only a freeway that made access easier.  It’s probably just that the Royals aren’t used to crowds and have no idea how to prep for them.  KC pounded the Dodger pitching and ended up running away with the game and you should consider moving Coco Crisp up your draft board a round or two–guy looks good for 10 HRs and 40 SBs, all while playing plus defense too.  The same can not be said for someone named Xavier Paul, who the Dodgers had plugged into left field, he took arguably some of the worst routes I’ve ever seen to fly balls.  Surprise probably had more Dodger fans than Royals on hand but all the KC people we sat with were great and everyone seemed to enjoy the FLO TV that was providing us with all of the NCAA games, a must for travel these days.  Oh, and speaking of KC fans, is the picture above not the saddest thing you have ever seen?  Were the Ross Gload T’s all sold out?  God bless you, KC fans.  The Mexicutioner and I are up and ready to roll to our last game today at 1:00 (Dodgers-Indians) but do you want to put money if if John B is up yet?  I’ll take the under.

So a while ago we all decided to do the Spring Training thing because baseball.  Let me tell you, Arizona is hot.  I live in Santa Barbara man, it gets to 80 degrees like four or five times a year and this whole sunshine thing is sweet sweetness.  Last night The Mexicutioner and I drove to Costa Mesa where we waited for The Golf Exec to take a shower, pack his bags, do all his mishmash and then finally left Costa Mesa around 9:00 pm.  Have you ever driven though the desert in the middle of the night?  Good god, by the time we pulled into town I could only keep one eye open at a time.  I think all the truckers thought I was winking at them but really I just couldn’t keep both eyes open at once.  We got in to our hotel at 3:30 in the morning, due largely in part to a 30-minute sightseeing tour of downtown Blythe (it only takes about 3 minutes to see everything and then another 27 to stop laughing) so our late arrival was sort of our own fault.  G Slim, god bless you for educating the poor souls in that god forsaken dump.  A special shout-out to the lovely ladies of the Sub City Sandwich shop/gas station–love ya baby.

Today we slept until like 1o:00 and again had to wait for John B to take a shower, put on all of his perfume, etc before we headed out to the new Dodger/White Sox facility–Cameltoe Cambel Back Ranch.  SPOILER ALERT: Place is beautiful.  Shockingly new, pristine, food options up the wazoo, friendly faces, nothing but sunshine and baseball my friends.  You are literally on top of the players too…Russ Mart walks past you, you can totally whisper “he is still skipping his throws to second base” and he will shoot you a dirty look.  So, so, so sick.  John B is notoriously hard to impress because BIG TIME but after visiting the gentleman’s room (very nice) he walked back to our seats and said, “This is my new favorite stadium.”  Fajitas, buffets, everything you’d want–just fantastic.  The game was good times, Clay Kershaw was dirty on the hill and also dropped a solo bomb to start the scoring, a no-doubt-about-it shot to right.  There was no Manny of course but Ethier looked locked in at the plate so expect me to draft him three rounds too early at my draft on Sunday.  Tomorrow we’ve got two games on tap…Seattle vs. Milwaukee in the morning and then Dodgers vs. Royals in the evening.  Oh, and did you know it’s hot in Phoenix?  Damn hot my friends.  Bring your sunscreen.