Marinerds, etc.

...because he has been fired as Royals manager.

I honestly haven't been following the MLB in the last few years, so I truly have no clue how the Royals were doing, other than that they were still generally losing games. I'm still guessing that the Royals lost a lot of games not because of Trey per se, but more because they just aren't very good at baseball. Still, a manager is always a convenient person to fire when a team sucks, I suppose.

(Hillman managed the Nippon Ham Fighters from 2003-2007. I basically became a Fighters fan about the same time he became the manager, though these things were coincidental.)

I don't know a lot about the situations involved with the Royals, though, obviously, so here are a few articles I read to find out more:

Royals send Hillman off as a winner - apparently he was given the choice whether to manage Thursday night's game, and went ahead and did it -- and Greinke got his first win of the year as such, and Trey didn't have to finish on a 7-game losing streak.

GM’s firing of a friend could be a positive sign for the Royals - only three days ago Dayton Moore said at a press conference that Hillman was "exactly what our organization needs at this point in time." But I guess there is some backstory going on here, including them blaming Hillman for screwing up Gil Meche. (Naturally, many Mariners fans would be happy to point out that Gil Meche was already kinda screwed up.)

Hillman's genius lost in translation - as always, a unique perspective from Joe Posnanski. I remember him writing about the Fighters in 2007 during the Japan Series, too.


I dunno. I got to talk to Trey a little back in April 2008, but at the time he had just started his job with the Royals, so I didn't really get a lot of insight on that. I will say that he was an extremely nice guy, and I really had a lot of respect for him when he was in Japan, and he was very popular with the Fighters fans. (One of my friends still wears a Hillman #88 jersey to Fighters games now.) I think it sucks that he got fired from the Royals, but I'm sure he'll find something else to do in baseball. Maybe he can even come back here to Japan!

(It's not just a host of ex-NPB guys, it's a bad punchline!)

Usually when I'm in "better late than never" mode I just let these games slide off my radar into "never", but this one was kind of special for various reasons, so I at least want there to be some form of entry here about it. This is from the April 15th Mariners-Royals game.

It was another cold and cloudy morning in Seattle, so I was in no particular hurry to get down to the stadium; plus I had a bunch of errands to run in the morning. (You know, a baseball game really can kill most of a day for me -- since I generally try to get there 1.5 hours early, which means catching the bus 2.5 hours before the game, so for a 3:40pm start, I got out of the house a little after 1:30pm, and I didn't arrive home until around 9pm that night.) I ended up arriving around 2:30pm, wihch was way too late. I went down to the field and just sat there in the front row, watching the Royals take BP, which is really more than enough entertainment for me. I just enjoy watching batting practice, to be honest, regardless of whether I have my big camera with me. Brent (aka etowncoug on Lookout Landing and such) arrived a little while after I did, and he sat down next to me and we chatted about various stuff.

Joey Gathright got called over by some people and signed some stuff, including my ticket stub. Thanks, dude.

I was just saying to Brent what a totally nice guy Trey Hillman is when... Hillman actually started coming over towards us! I'm pretty sure he was actually going towards the group of people behind us -- the friends I saw him talking to the day before -- but I said hi anyway as he came up. And this time I actually managed to ask a few questions as he was signing stuff for kids/etc, although I still feel pretty dorky about it all. These aren't exact quotes from him, I'm just trying to recapture the responses via my shorthand notes and what I remember.

I asked, "Do you think what you've been given with the Royals is like what you got when you arrived with the Fighters six years ago?"

He said that you could say the situations were similar, but that being in the majors is a completely different ballgame. Getting the guys to keep working together well as a team is a big objective. "The important thing is to never underestimate what we can do. I'd love to take these guys all the way to the World Series."

"If anyone can do it, it's you," I said. "How about... err... do you have any crazy guys on this team kinda like Shinjo or Hichori?"

"Oh, yeah, we definitely have crazy guys," he said.

"Are YOU still crazy?" I laughed.

"Yeah, I'm still crazy. Last week I set my pants on fire."

"You WHAT?"

"I was going out to congratulate Tony Pena on a play, and there was a propane heater in the dugout, and I got a little too close, and next thing you know, I was on fire. It wasn't on purpose, but it got a good laugh from everyone."

"How much do you still keep up with what's going on with the Fighters?" I asked.

"I still keep up with it. I go visit japanesebaseball.com as often as I can to see the standings and articles," ("Dude! I wrote the box score translator for that site!" I rudely cut in, because I was just too freaked out that Hillman-kantoku reads the site!), "and I even did that Skype call to Hillman's Hangout last night! It was at 5am here, but after people had watched the game in Sapporo, I think it was a tie, 3-3, not sure who they were playing," (again I cut in, "Seibu,") "the tie game with Seibu," he continued. "I can't see the crowd, they choose some people to come up and ask me a question, and I can see that person, but everyone in the restaurant can see and hear my response. The place fits around 70 or 80 people."

"Will you be doing any of those Q&A sessions during the first weekend in May?" I said, having told him before that I'd be heading to Sapporo for my first time over Golden Week.

"I don't know the schedule. Ikeda-san decides it and I just call in," he replied.

BP was coming to its end by that point. I asked him to sign a card for me -- it was his Nippon Series 2007 manager card -- and would you believe, he said "Hey, this is cool. I don't think I've seen this one before."

"Really? It's from last year's Japan Series."

"Yeah, that company, BBM? They make a lot of money off these cards, but they rarely give the cards to the people in them."

"Damn! I would have brought you a whole set if I'd known!"

(Now I am seriously trying to figure out if I could somehow find another box or two of Japan Series 2006/2007 cards and send them to Kansas City, no joke.)

My friend Brett, who had also shown up by then, asked Hillman to get Brian Bannister to come over to see some pitching stats that he'd printed up (because Bannister is a stathead. Which is cool). Hillman was like "I don't know if I want you Mariners fans getting into his head... but I'll give him the message."

Anyway, as Hillman headed off, I made some comment about how "It's just great to meet you finally. People in the stands in the Fighters section, they see my white skin, and usually ask me about you."

"Well, now you can tell them you've met me, and that it's absolutely no big deal!"

"WHAT? No way! This was the highlight of my trip home!"

The ushers kicked us out of the field area after that, and so I made my way over to section 108, where I was meeting up with a few folks; Chris and Rachel, who had gone with me to the first open-sen game this year at Jingu, and Edwin, who posts to japanesebaseball.com as Kamina Ayato, and writes a TON about the Koshien tourmaments. (As such, I brought him a present: the Shube magazine special issue summarizing the spring senbatsu tournament. I knew Kinokuniya in Seattle NEVER gets those special issues.)

But, I pretty much immediately ran off to the bullpen to watch John Bale warm up, because, hey, last time I saw him pitch, he was wearing a Hiroshima Carp uniform. So, neat! I also saw Miguel Batista warming up, wearing a #42 jersey -- somehow it had entirely escaped me that this game was Jackie Robinson Day as well. I looked around both bullpens, but I actually don't really recognize all the guys anymore, which was kind of odd. I did see Norm Charlton hanging out in the M's bullpen, and realized he must be the bullpen coach now. And in the Royals bullpen I watched as the guys came in and as Bale and Buck left; I saw Yabuta, and at the very end before I left, I saw Nomo enter. He looked around, and kind of nodded at me and the Japanese guy with a camera, and then hid in the bullpen bench.

(The last time I saw Hideo Nomo in the Safeco bullpens was almost three years ago, when he was with Tampa Bay.)

Anyway, I got a BBQ sandwich and ran back upstairs JUST IN TIME to see leadoff batter David DeJesus get a single to right. Grudzilla singled as well, and my Royals boyfriend Mark Teahen struck out. But then during Billy Butler's at-bat, Batista threw a wild pitch, advancing the runners to second and third, and so DeJesus tagged up and scored when Butler hit a sac fly to center. 1-0. Jose Guillen grounded out after that to end the inning.

Naturally, Ichiro led off the bottom of the first with a double to right as well, then stole third in a cloud of smoke during Jose Lopez's at-bat, and thus scored on a sac fly to left. 1-1.

The Mariners put on two more runs in the second; Jose Vidro led off with a ground rule double which bounced over the wall into our section (it was pretty difficult to see from our angle, actually). Richie Sexson walked, and after a popout by Johjima, WILLIE BLOOMQUIST!1!111 hit a single to right; Vidro and Sexson were off on the hit so Vidro scored and Sexson got to third. 2-1. Yuniesky Betancourt hit a sac fly to center, and even Big Richie could tag up and score off that one. 3-1. Ichiro came out to some random J-Pop song, and a few seconds later, Bloomquist got caught stealing to end the inning. Whoosh.

So Ichiro led off the bottom of the third, and singled to left. This time he got to second on a wild pitch during Lopez's at-bat, ran to third on a popout by Lopez, and scored on a Raul Ibanez single. 4-1. Adrian Beltre hit a popup into the outfield after that... except it actually landed, so Raul had to actually run and slide into second base. Whoops. Bale struck out Vidro and Richie to end the inning, though.

The Royals caught up in the top of the 4th. Billy Butler walked. Jose Guillen mashed a double into left, so when Alex Gordon grounded out towards first, Butler scored (4-2) and Guillen got to third. Ross Gload singled, scoring Guillen -- 4-3. John Buck also singled, and... got caught stealing during Tony Pena's at-bat. (He was out by a mile. Or at least by his own height, and he's a pretty tall dude for a catcher.) Pena hit a weak grounder up the left-field line which rolled foul (and evoked the Price is Right music as it went), but then after that hit a grounder towards third which went for a single, Gload scoring on the play. 4-4. Pena stole and DeJesus walked, but that was it for the Royals as Grudzilla grounded out to end the inning.

They had announced Hideo Nomo being in the bullpen, but I didn't know if it was worth jumping up and running down there to see him warm up. After Johjima led off the bottom of the 4th with a single, Bale came out of the game and Nomo came in to pitch, and then I DID feel a little sad that we didn't catch him -- I realized it was probably the last chance I would ever have to see Nomo pitching from close up. Dang.

Sadly, Nomo got the crap beaten out of him. Willie Freaking Bloomquist also singled off him, and then Betancourt hit a double to left, scoring Johjima. 5-4. Ichiro actually STRUCK OUT, but then Jose Lopez -- who would eventually hit three sac flies for the day -- hit another one, scoring Willie. 6-4. Ibanez popped out to end the inning.

(As Ichiro was at bat, I said "This is definitely going to be on the news in Japan tonight... Nomo pitches to Ichiro! It's just a shame he didn't pitch to Johjima too.")

The onslaught continued in the bottom of the 5th. Beltre led off with a double. Vidro walked. Richie walked. Bases loaded, and out came Hillman-kantoku, who we noticed was also wearing #42 (in addition to many players -- Guillen, Betancourt, Beltre, etc). Nomo comes out of the game, and in comes Ron Mahay... and naturally the first thing that happens is that Johjima hits a double to left. Beltre scores. Vidro scores. And as Teahen finally recovers the ball and throws it in, Richie Sexson slides into third base. Headfirst. ARGH. 8-4. Bloomquist walks again, and then Yuniesky Betancourt also hits his second sac fly of the day, scoring Richie Sexson. 9-4. Ichiro grounds to short... but it turns into a wacky rundown for Johjima, some sort of 6-2-5-2-5 or something play, and he's out. Meanwhile, Willie gets to third, and thus scores when Jose Lopez singles. 10-4. "Raul," I implore, "You have to get an out, or I will run out of space for this inning." He obliges and strikes out.

In the meantime, the scoreboards have shown that Yabuta is warming up in the bullpen. "HOLY SHIT YABUTA!" I exclaim. "Thank Hillman! We HAVE to go down there."

So Edwin and I head down to the bullpen for the top of the 6th, during which time John Buck and Tony Pena manage to get on base and score runs to bring the score to 10-6.


YFK!

While we were down there, watching Yabuta warm up, people were yelling crap at him. In English. We told them to shut up. They said "He can't understand us anyway," and I'm like "Is that an excuse?" I know it's part of the game and all, so it's really not that big a deal, but given that I was wearing a Lotte t-shirt under my Mariners jersey, I felt obligated to make sure somebody had his back. (Blame the mind control.) As Yabuta ran onto the field, we yelled "GANBARE YABUTA-SENSHU!!!! GANBATTE!!!", and then ran back up to our seats to see him pitch the 6th inning.

He did pretty well! Got a groundout from Beltre, and then struck out Vidro and Sexson!

But then the bottom of the 7th happened... Johjima led off with a single. ("Oh, that's gonna be on the news too. Yabuta pitched to Johjima and Johjima got a hit -- wow, is that now THREE moments from this game that'll end up on TV in Japan?") Willie Bloomquist walked -- making him 4 times on base for 4 plate appearances on the day -- and then Betancourt hit a pop fly out. Sadly, rather than going for ANOTHER moment for the Japan nightly news, they took Yabuta out of the game at that point and put in Jimmy Gobble instead, who promptly walked Ichiro to load the bases. Whoops. Jose Lopez served up yet another sac fly, and that made it 11-6. (And that's what the final score of the game would be, as well.)

Joakim Soria came out to pitch the bottom of the 8th, probably because he hadn't pitched in a week. Seems the Royals haven't really had a lot of close games for him to hang on to.

Arthur Rhodes (yes -- THAT Arthur Rhodes) pitched the top of the 9th. DeJesus was out on a looping liner caught by Yuniesky Betancourt, but then Grudzielanek and Teahen hit singles, and that was the signal to bring out another pitcher. "Where we're going," I said, "We don't need Rhodes." Mark Lowe came out and got a double play off Billy Butler shortly afterwards, and that was the game.

Strangely, the game took so long -- about 3 and a half hours -- that by the time it ended, it was already a little past 7pm, which is when games NORMALLY start. And damn, was it ever cold. Sometime around the 5th or 6th inning when a beer guy came in like "COLD BEER HERE!!!" I heard someone yell "I'd rather have hot chocolate!" In the 7th, we actually went up and bought hot chocolate.

After saying goodbye to people and to Safeco and stopping in the team store briefly, I headed back up to Ballard -- and then I pretty much stopped thinking about baseball for my entire trip back to America, for the most part. The Pirates weren't in town when I was in Pittsburgh, but that's probably a good thing. I guess I could have gone to PNC Park to look for Kuwata stuff, but eh, I had better things to do.

It's pretty neat that I got to see Bale and Nomo and Yabuta all in the same game. When I came back to Japan, the two big questions my students had for me about baseball were "Did you yell Shinjirarenaaaaaaaiiii at Hillman-kantoku?" and "Did you see Nomo?" It's great that I was able to answer "yes!" to both of them.

In a day or two, I'll start my Golden Week of Baseball - something like Jingu Sunday, Gifu Tuesday, Chiba Wednesday, Sapporo Friday-Saturday-Sunday, Seibu Monday. I may mix other games in there if I can figure out timing. (I *could* just go sit at Jingu all day Sunday and watch Tokyo Big 6 games before the Swallows-Dragons game in the evening. This is not a bad weekend for that, actually -- since Todai isn't playing, I might actually get to see some REAL baseball.)

I don't really have time to write a full report about the Royals game I went to on Tuesday afternoon, so here are a few photos I snapped for now. I'll write more later.


Royals starter (former Hiroshima Carp pitcher) John Bale.


Mariners starter Miguel Batista wears #42 for Jackie Robinson day.


Ex-Marines pitcher Yasuhiko Yabuta. I yelled at the people who were shouting mean things to him, and shouted "Ganbare!!" to him as he went into the game.

Sadly we didn't go down to see Nomo warming up -- which is why I jumped up and ran downstairs as soon as we saw Yabuta in the bullpen.


Anyway, I have been in Pittsburgh the last few days -- having a blast at my college reunion, and the weather has been fantastic too. I have one more full day left in America and then I fly out Sunday morning from here to go back to Japan. I really kind of wish I could spend some more time back here in America...

So, I'm in Seattle. Five days is just too short a time to spend here; I need about three times as much, or more. (And no, having my Saturday last 34 hours doesn't count.) It's really fantastic to be back, and despite the crazy reverse culture shock, it's making me rethink which country I ought to be in. But that is neither here nor there. Right now I'm here. So there.

I went down to Safeco tonight for the Mariners-Royals game. I'll fully admit that the timing of my trip to America was based upon my college reunion this upcoming weekend, and the Royals coming to town now. I was really, really, really hoping to get a chance to shake Trey Hillman's hand and thank him for all he did with the Fighters. And, well, I got to do that...



Trey had actually been warned that I'd be stalking him, though, so I'm not sure it still qualifies as stalking.

I showed up at Safeco at 5:30, just in time for opposing team batting practice, and went down to the field, and... and I saw Hillman just sitting there talking to some people! Whoa! So with my heart pounding as loudly as the PA system, I just... went over and sat down. And after a minute or two I introduced myself to Trey, or more like, he figured out who I was. Now the confusion is, I think he had the idea I wanted to interview him so I could write stuff here on the blog, except me being an idiot, I had no such plan, I really just wanted to say hi. You all know I'm not a real reporter, I'm just a dorky girl with a blog who happens to be a gigantic Fighters fan.

I just sat there and listened to him talk to his friends for a while, trying to curb the "Oh my god, that's Hillman-kantoku!" alarms going off in my brain. He had a lot of funny stories to tell -- about being in Japan, about getting the KC job, etc. About how the Fighters winning the Japan Series brought a lot of money to Hokkaido and had a huge impact on the island. About his daughter learning Japanese and dancing with the Fighters Girls. About his son, also involved in sports, who is taking on tennis in addition to track. ("I told him, 'TJ, tennis is a country club sport. We're rednecks!'") About how in Japan, it's nigh impossible to interact with fans due to the fences and the high walls and all, so it's nice how he could just sit out and chat like this.

I've read articles for years about how nice a guy Hillman is, and seen him on TV in Japan countless times, and now having met the guy, all I can say is -- it's for real, every bit of it. While I was out there chatting with him, people would keep coming up, asking for autographs and to get a picture taken with him. I think most of them knew who he was. Many of them were kids. Some of them were Japanese people, even -- "Hillman-kantoku, can we see Nomo pitch today?" "Tabun." (Maybe.) "Tabun???" "Okay, probably not..." He was very kind to everyone, and I ended up taking a whole lot of pictures of people with their cameras and lending kids my Sharpie :)

He asked if I'd been to Sapporo; I said I'm going for my first time in two weeks. His recommendation was to make sure I check out "Hillman's Hangout" in the Susukino area. Apparently he even does some broadcast chats with the Fighters fans there over Skype! How cool is that? (Well, aside from the part where he has to be awake at 5am for it, that is?) He also had some funny stories about getting confused between speaking Spanish and Japanese.

Anyway, I feel like a major retard because I didn't really have any questions prepared. Naturally, of course I thought of a bazillion as the game was going on and I was still kicking myself. If I get there early again tomorrow, maybe I'll bug him, but, sigh.

Yasuhiko Yabuta came over and signed stuff for about 4 people before he ran off. I said in Japanese, "please sign this!!" but he just looked at me funny on his way out running. Doh! A lot of other people caught Joey Gathright and Brian Bannister as they were around after BP, but I don't like to elbow into the crowds much.

Oh, so anyway, there was a game. And it was COLD outside. REALLY COLD. It was BECU night, which means $11 tickets in the upper deck. As a result of that plus the temperature plus the Royals, the left field bleachers were LITERALLY empty. When the game started, one person was sitting there. Even towards the end, we think we saw 6 people out there, 2 of whom were ushers.

I was sitting up in section 340 for the start of the game with Gomez and Brett from Lookout Landing, plus Brett's mom, plus my friend Jason from college. (Jason is a Yankees fan, but he's a Yankees fan from the days when they sucked, so he's Allowed.) Anyway, to keep warm, Brett decided to yell a lot of stuff. Or maybe Brett just always yells a lot of stuff, I don't really know. It mostly started off pretty tame -- "Nice range Guillen, you know who gets that one? Adam Jones!" or "Hey Vidro, what's your secret? Hot dogs? Footlongs?"

(Brett held up his 'Sign Barry Bonds' sign for a while and said things like "You know who makes that a home run? Barry Bonds," after Jose Guillen doubled in the 2nd inning. Jason remarked, "So Barry Bonds is the Chuck Norris of baseball?")

Jarrod Washburn, aka J-Rod the Washburninator, started for the Mariners. Zack Greinke, who I thought had gone insane, started for the Royals.

The first inning went by quickly, with the Mariners GIDPing themselves out of it, but the second was big for the Royals. Billy Butler led off the inning with a 387-foot home run into the Royals bullpen. 1-0. Then Guillen's aforementioned double, a strikeout by Alex Gordon, and... as I was saying how Miguel Olivo should also be striking out any minute, Brett said how "Olivo hasn't hit any home runs so far, so I bet he'll do that now." And sure enough, BLAM, Olivo sent one over the centerfield wallm, 420 feet. Funny how I rarely ever saw him do that when he played on the Mariners... but, 3-0.

"Hey, if Washburn basically walks, strikes out, or gives up a home run to every batter he faces, does that make him a Three True Outcomes pitcher?" I asked.

The M's GIDPed themselves out of the second inning too, and then in the third, Brad Wilkerson led off with a walk. Kenji Johjima singled, and then both Betancourt and Ichiro hit grounders to first which were thrown to second to head off the leading runner. However, during that, Wilkie managed to get all the way around and score, so good for him. 3-1. Lopez grounded out to second to end the inning.

I want to point out that according to my scorecard, Mark Grudzielanek at second base was responsible for, or partially responsible for, 13 out of the 27 outs. He's good.

We spent the top of the 4th moving down from section 340 to section 108, and it went by so quickly we pretty much missed the entire thing.

No such luck on the top of the 5th, though. After two quick outs, there were two quick singles, and then Washburn hit Grudzilla with a pitch to load the bases. Mark Teahen grounded out after that, though.

Music trivia song was Jungle Boogie by Kool and the Gang. I guessed 1978 instead of 1974. Vidro was born in 1974 and the World's Fair was in Spokane. Go figure.

Somewhere in the 5th and 6th innings, Brett started getting bored, so he was heckling Jose Guillen. Except, given that his mom was at the game with us, he wasn't going to say anything offensive. The Mariners put up the "quick facts" on the big screen with each batter, so he started yelling things like "HEY JOSE, RICHIE'S FAVORITE 70'S BAND IS CCR. WHAT'S YOURS?" "JOSE, BRAD'S FAVORITE VIDEOGAME IS MADDEN. DID YOU KNOW THAT? THAT'S A DAMN GOOD CHOICE, BRAD!"

Next inning, "HEY JOSE, KENJI'S FAVORITE SNACK IS TOAST. DO YOU LIKE TOAST?" "HEY JOSE, SEAN GREEN IS WARMING UP IN THE BULLPEN, I BET YOU DON'T WANT TO FACE HIM!!" "HEY, JOSE LOPEZ HAS THE SAME NAME AS YOU. ISN'T THAT NEAT? HOW MANY JOSES DO YOU KNOW HERE IN THE STADIUM TONIGHT? I KNOW THREE."

"WE DON'T HAVE ANY QUICK FACTS ABOUT YOU JOSE, CAN YOU TELL ME SOME? DO YOU LIKE PAPER OR PLASTIC?" At this point, a girl in the row ahead of us who was laughing called back at Brett, "Coke or Pepsi?" and Gomez was like "Dude, you have a request," and so Brett yelled "CMON JOSE, TELL ME SOMETHING, I'M WRITING A PAPER ABOUT YOU. HOW ABOUT COKE OR PEPSI?"

I was positive we were going to get thrown out of the stadium, but apparently (fortunately?) the ushers in 108 know Brett and think he's pretty funny.

While Zack Greinke was quietly and effectively (and coldly) blowing through the Mariners lineup over and over again, Jarrod Washburn came out of the game after 6 innings, and Sean Green came in and immediately loaded the bases -- Olivo singled, Buck walked, and Pena came up bunting but ended up singling. Ryan "Hyphen" Rowland-Smith came in after that. David DeJesus hit a pop fly way out to center, but even Ichiro couldn't fire in the ball quickly enough to keep Olivo from scoring. 4-1. RRS dealt with the next two batters quickly, though.

Roy "the other Corco" Corcoran pitched the top of the 8th, and gave up another run. With one out and one on, Alex Gordon hit the ball to short, and it looked like a sure double play, but the ball got away from Lopez at second. Our guess is that Guillen slid into him (come to think of it, last year I saw Guillen do that in a Royals game too, only that time he took out Grudzilla) to break up the DP. Olivo then hit the ball up the middle too -- and Jose Lopez stopped the ball but it somehow fell out of his glove again. He rolled it to second, but apparently was not quick enough to get Gordon, who then scored on a subsequent John Buck single. 5-1.

In the bottom of the 8th, we were hoping to see an appearance by the Yuni-Bomber, except instead, we saw an appearance by Leaping Teahens, as Mark Teahen made a jumping catch right out by the back wall in left field.

And that's really all there is to this story. The 9th inning went by quickly and painlessly, which was good, because it was COLD. The Royals won 5-1, and 16,751 watched it. I totally believe that number -- the stadium was deserted. It's a shame I couldn't be around for a warmer game sometime, but I really did want to see the Royals. They're kicking ass!

Tomorrow John Bale gets the start against Miguel Batista. Last time I saw Bale pitch he was wearing a Hiroshima Carp uniform, so this should be pretty neat!

I haven't put descriptions in yet, but here's a pretty big photo set from that nice sunny Royals-Mariners game last Sunday that my camera attended and was kind enough to bring me along.


Jamie Burke!
Click on the photo of Burke to get to the big photo set, or click on this link right here, or whatever. Lots of fun shots of Mariners (particularly Morrow, Burke, and Betancourt) and of Royals (particularly Grudzilla, Teahen, and DeJesus).

This has nothing to do with this post, but Yukio is down to 5 more hits. I suck at predicting. Also, Yu Darvish is ours, and you can't have him.

Mariners 5, Royals 1

Say what you will about Cha Seung Baek, and say what you will about the Kansas City Royals, but he did have a no-hitter going into the 6th inning, until Grudzilla slapped one up the middle for a single.

Say what you will about Willie Bloomquist, but he managed to stay alive in the bottom of the 7th and hit a valid double into centerfield which brought in the two go-ahead runs.

Say what you will about Brandon Morrow, but he deserved his win today. In the immortal words of Peter Venkman, he came, he saw, he kicked its ass.


Grudzielanek: "Hey you, you get your dirty hands off my base."
Betancourt: "All your base are belong to me!"

"Short" version: Cha Seung Baek was perfect for his first three innings and almost had a no-hitter through six, walking David DeJesus in the 4th and Alex Gordon in the 5th. Mark Grudzielanek broke up the no-hitter in the 6th with a single, and sadly Baek also lost the shutout in the 7th inning, as Mike Sweeney led off with a double, was pinch-run for by Emil Brown, who was driven in by a Reggie Sanders single to shallow center which Willie Bloomquist dove for and missed. With runners at second and third and one out, Brandon Morrow came in and struck out Tony Pena and John Buck to keep the score tied at 1-1. Baek struck out 6 batters in 6 innings.

Yes, it was only 1-1 at that point, because despite Brian Bannister only managing to strike out one Willie Bloomquist, the Mariners still couldn't really do all that great a job of getting their bats on the ball. Beltre threatened in the first inning, singling to center, stealing, and advancing on a wild pitch, but Richie Sexson grounded into a fielder's choice to end the inning. Guillen reached on a Pena-Gordon fumble in the second, and Betancourt replaced him in a fielder's choice, also stealing, and then scoring on a solid double by Jamie Burke. But that was it for the Mariners offense, as Bannister retired the next 14 batters.

Richie Sexson started off the 7th inning by walking, and Jose Guillen grounded into a 6-4 fielder's choice. Yuniesky Betancourt then hit the ball into the left-center gap for a double, almost getting thrown out at second, having to scramble back to the bag to beat Grudzielanek's tag. Jamie Burke popped out to first, and Willie Bloomquist came to bat with two outs and runners at second and third. He got up to a full count, and then appeared to strike out, but the umpire called it a foul tip. Willie took the next pitch he saw and cracked it into center field. DeJesus misjudged it and dove for the ball, missing, turning Willie's single into a double, scoring Guillen and Betancourt and bringing the score to 3-1. Jimmy Gobble replaced Bannister at that point, and Ichiro singled home Willie after that to make it 4-1. Adrian Beltre hit into an infield single where Tony Pena made a nice stop on the ball but had no time for a throw. Jose Vidro hit a drive into the gap in right center, and David DeJesus chased it down, ending the inning.

Ibanez "tripled" in the next inning but the scorers called it an error after DeJesus dropped the ball, though he really had no right even reaching the ball in the first place. Joel Peralta replaced Gobble, and Richie Sexson singled home Ibanez to make the score 5-1, where it would stay when Betancourt grounded into a double play shortly afterwards.

Brandon Morrow retired five batters in a row to earn the win. JJ Putz pitched a scoreless 9th inning, though part of that was due to a diving catch by Jason Ellison. Ross Gload singled, advanced on defensive indifference and on a wild pitch, but Putz struck out Reggie Sanders and Alex Gordon, both swinging, to end the game.

There was a moment of silence before the game to honor the memory of Josh Hancock, who passed away early this morning in a car accident. Hancock was a relief pitcher for the Cardinals and had just thrown three innings in yesterday's game, even. I don't really have good words for this. My thoughts go out to his friends and family.


Down on the corner, out in the street, Willie and the poor boys are playing...

Today was one of the nicest days I've ever had the opportunity to spend watching a baseball game, weather-wise. It was sunny, but it was still something like 60 degrees out. Sadly, though, there was no batting or fielding practice before the game. I arrived at the stadium around 11:40am, and there were a few Mariners playing catch on the field, and then there were two huge lines of people waiting to get autographs from Jose Lopez and Kenji Johjima. I didn't feel like waiting in line, so I just went down and took a few pictures of pitchers -- notably, Jarrod Washburn was "catching" for Jeff Weaver, which was just plain comical.

I went over to the third-base side to watch Todd Wellemeyer and Jimmy Gobble playing catch, and saw a really tall Royals player signing stuff, so I went over to get him to sign my ticket stub. Turned out it was John Buck. He is a LOT taller than I thought! Wellemeyer and Gobble also signed stuff, but I only had one Royals ticket stub, so I didn't bother them. Now, if it had been Mark Teahen or Gil Meche (I was even wearing my Meche #55 shirt for the occasion), it might have been another story. Anyway.

I was sitting on the first base side for this game. Section 117, row 4. Beautiful day, plenty sunny, and so I shot about 400 pictures total. The people around me were pretty tolerant of the constant camera clicking, though -- the couple on my left mostly seemed to have no idea what was going on most of the time, and the guy on my right spent the whole game yelling things like "CMON BUDDY! CMON GO WILLIE GO! YEAH BAEK, YOU STRIKE HIM OUT YEAH! CMON ICHI, GET A HIT ICHI! YEAH BIG SEXY, YOU'RE BATTING 143, CMON GET A HIT CMON CMON BUDDY!", and behind me was a lady with a screaming baby. You take the good with the bad, I guess. Loud Dude also kept telling me how Willie Bloomquist is his favorite player, and then he tried to convince me that Jamie Burke went to high school with Willie, and I tried to explain to him that he meant Jason Ellison, and eventually I just gave up.

My section was a magnet for foul balls today; one landed three rows behind me, and another was 6 seats to my left, in my row. At one point, Ross Gload fouled off a ball that a middle-aged guy in the front row of my section caught, but the ball barely bounced out of his glove. Amber the ball girl runs up and recovers the ball... and starts going away to hand it to a kid elsewhere, when a bunch of people in the section yell "Give it back! Cmon, give him the ball!" Some others took up the chant of "Give it back!" and so she did. I know it's the ball girl's job to give baseballs to little kids and all, but I think in this case it was certainly right to give it to the guy.

Dan Wilson threw out the ceremonial first pitch for the game, and was there with his whole family. He got a big standing ovation, of course. They also showed one of the old Dan Wilson Quik Flix videos before Jose Guillen led off the bottom of the 2nd, which was weird, since Guillen is wearing Dan's old #6.

Jamie Burke is cool. I mean, I like Kenji Johjima and all, but I think we've finally got a backup catcher that doesn't suck. In addition to his hitting, he also called a good game, and then they did one of those "interview with a kid" clips between innings, with him. At one point he asks the kid "Who's your favorite athlete?" and the kid's like "You... and Ichiro..." and he's like "Me? Really? Thanks!" and then asks the kid about siblings, and starts talking about how he had three sisters, all older, and BOY was that a pain growing up. It was cute.

The AM-PM "too much of a good thing" prize was about 20 rows back and 2 sections over from me. The prize was 300 mini-donuts. I think just as many people got up and went crazy trying to get thrown mini-donuts as people got up and went crazy trying to catch a foul ball.

Today was informally "Knock down Mark Grudzielanek Day", apparently. He was taken out at second base at least three times. But hey, take a look at this -- in the second inning, Jose Guillen slid hard into second base and effectively broke up what would have been a 5-4-3 double play. He also ripped his pants, and I of course captured it on camera. Check out Guillen's left pants leg:




Guillen vs. Grudzilla - When Spikes Collide

Something that's also kind of crazy is that the Mariners were stealing off Bannister/LaRue fairly effectively, but Baek was trying pretty hard to hold people to the bag. David DeJesus and Alex Gordon in particular had a lot of pickoff throws aimed at them. After about five tries in a row, even Richie Sexson was getting sick of the pickoff routine:


DeJesus: Aren't you guys getting sick of this yet?
Sexson: Shut up and take it like a man.

And last, but not least, let me talk again about Brandon Morrow for a second.

When I first saw Morrow come into a game during the second game of the season, on April 3rd, he looked horribly shaky, like he couldn't believe he was out there pitching to big-leaguers in a major league game. He managed to keep his composure and get out of a scoreless inning then, but it looked like he had a ways to go before he would be able to go out there and throw strikes.

That seems to have changed. I haven't seen his performances in the interim, but the Brandon Morrow I saw today pretty much came out there, in a fairly high-leverage situation (runners on second and third, tie game in the 7th inning), and said "I don't really care whose son this guy is, or whether John Buck is unusually tall for a catcher. I am a major league pitcher, and I am going to throw the ball really fast, and these guys are going to swing and miss."

And he did. And they did.

Morrow stayed in for the 8th inning as well to actually earn his win. Sure, this was the Royals, but DeJesus, Grudzilla, and Teahen are all legitimate major leaguers, and Morrow pretty much went right after them. He got some help from Adrian Beltre, who made a fantastic play on a Grudzielanek grounder -- Beltre stopped it with his glove, but didn't make the pickup, but in the same motion just swooped up the ball barehanded and fired it to first base in time for the out. (It was the finale for the Great Plays Video Vault after that inning.) Morrow then struck out Teahen, and in all honesty, he almost looked better out there today than JJ Putz did in the 9th.


Morrowned.

I don't really want to talk about JJ Putz's appearance. It looks good on paper if all you see is "flyout, single, strikeout, strikeout", but really, he was all over the place. We all stood up for the final out, with Alex Gordon at the plate, and suddenly, there went JJ again, like a Blass from the Past, bouncing a pitch in the dirt and then throwing a wild one to his friends in the Diamond Club.

I'm just hoping it was due to him being a bit off his game after having a few slightly-longer-than-one-inning outings, or something.

Also, Ryan Shealy sucks. Guess it serves me right for drafting a Kansas City player on my fantasy team. He wasn't even in the game today for me to heckle.

Anyway, it was a good game to watch. I'll try to get more of my photos up in a real set soon, since there are a lot of pretty cool ones. Sometimes I wonder what I could accomplish with some better camera lenses and a press pass...

The first rule of book club is: when book club sucks, you don't talk about book club. Only Josh and Gomez showed up, and Josh was 45 minutes late, so there wasn't much to it. We didn't pick a book for August, either... it might either end up being Fantasyland, or I might try to make everyone read something by Mike Sowell. If there's anyone out there actually planning to show up for book club in August who has a suggestion for a book, feel free to speak up. Oh, and July's book club meeting will be on July 8th. We're still covering Paths of Glory by Mark Armour et al.

Anyway, Josh and I went over to the Royals game afterwards. For whatever reason, Josh is still a Royals fan, and I feel really bad for him, because, my god, the Royals really suck. I mean, they let us score twelve runs. In one game! Sometimes we don't even score twelve runs in a week!

Short version: Uhhh... the Royals suck. Sexson hit two home runs. Beltre hit one. The Mariners scored TWELVE FREAKING RUNS to win the game 12-1. Seth Etherton and Andy Sisco suck so much that at one point the Mariners had seriously scored 9 runs on 4 hits. I'm not kidding. The Royals really should have scored more than one run, but Paul Bako got called out at the plate in one of the most ridiculous calls I've ever seen, since he was safe by a mile. Oh well.

Tonight was "Cloverdale Meats Trading Card Night", which means that every fan (well, the first 20,000, at least, which for most intents and purposes is every fan) got an envelope with 27 trading cards in it. Everyone's set, though, would have five missing cards, and five extra of one player, the idea being that you're supposed to go to their "trading posts" and get a complete set by trading with people. Last year, we showed up too late to really do anything much with the trading cards. This year, we had plenty of time, but I just didn't feel like dealing with it. My set has five extra Roberto Petagine cards, one of which I traded to a guy down the row from me for an extra George Sherrill. I suppose I should pawn the extras off on Paul at some point. Josh gave me a Mateo, and I'm still missing Meche, Moyer, Lawton, and Livingston, and I'm sure you can guess exactly how much I care.

Josh went up to our seats, and I said "I'm gonna go try to trade some cards," but once I saw the ridiculous crowds around the trading posts blocking the walkways, what I actually did was go down to the field as the Royals were coming in from batting practice and see if I could get any of them to sign my ticket. What an apathetic bunch of losers -- seriously, they didn't even look out at the stands as they came in, probably figuring they couldn't possibly have any fans as far away as Seattle. Jeremy Affeldt was out by section 148 signing stuff though, and when I got there, he was saying to a little girl, "But you don't have a pen!" So I offered up my sharpie to the girl like "Here, would you like to use mine?" Affeldt signed her arm, said to her, "I bet you have no idea what I just wrote!" and started to hand me back my pen, so I said, "Wait, can you sign my ticket too, Jeremy?" Of course, little did he know that he was probably one of maybe five guys on the Royals roster that I might actually recognize. Heh.


This is about the only way Jeremy Affeldt will get to leave his mark on baseball.

The first inning yielded three runs for the Mariners as Ichiro doubled, Lopez walked and ended up on second on a passed ball by Paul Bako, and Sexson hit his first home run of the night, a nice 420-foot shot into the bullpen.

The third inning yielded four more runs for the Mariners, as Josh was saying "blah blah everyone thinks they predicted Beltre would suck blah blah" and Beltre hit a 402-foot solo home run into the potted plants out behind the centerfield wall. A guy actually jumped down to get the ball, jumped back up, and then got chased down by ushers. It was pretty funny. Lopez walked again and ended up on third as Paul Bako threw a pickoff that went way over Mientkiewicz into right field, Ibanez walked, Sexson hit a sac fly to score Lopez (as Ibanez ran to second, and almost got himself tagged out to negate the run and end the inning), Everett walked, and Johjima hit a double to score everyone else. Seth Etherton came out of the game, and Andy Sisco came in, Josh telling me that Sisco was one of the few decent pitchers on the Royals staff.

The fourth inning was where I had to wonder what Josh was talking about, as Andy Sisco's command problems led to a point where his balls-strikes ratio was about the same as the Mariners runs-hits ratio, something like 18 balls and 10 strikes and the M's had scored 9 runs on 4 hits. Betancourt walked, Ichiro walked, they both executed a double steal, but then Beltre walked too. Lopez hit a sac fly and Ichiro and Betancourt advanced again. Ibanez hit into a double play, except Beltre knocked down Grudzielanek at second base and so it was just a forceout. Big Richie came up and hit his second home run of the evening, 392 feet into the right-field stands. Singles by Everett and Johjima followed, but Reed popped out to end the inning, as four runs were added to the Mariners tally for a score of 11-1 at this point.

As I said, the Royals should have scored a run in the third inning as Pineiro was letting singles up all over the place. Ibanez just looked terrible on a single by DeJesus, where the ball bounced into his stomach and he still couldn't hold on to it. So when Grudzilla hit a single out to left, Ibanez got it and threw the ball in. Bako was running home, and he was seriously safe by about a second as Johjima was about three feet to the right of the plate when the throw came in, but he got called out to end the inning. The Mariners ran off the field, the Royals ran ON the field to argue with the umpire, and the Mariners fans all cheered.

Pineiro gave up a bunch more singles in the fourth inning, starting off with a double to Doug Mientkiewicz, who was driven in by Matt Stairs. Stairs probably had the best night offensively of any Royals player, going 2-for-3, walking, and driving in a run. After the Royals scored a run in the fourth inning, Joel Pineiro really bore down on them in the fifth and struck out Bako, DeJesus, and Esteban German, who had come in to play when Grudzilla said, "I'm a real major leaguer. I refuse to participate in this debacle any longer."

The first four innings of the game took about two hours, and the last four innings of the game took about one hour, anyway, as the Royals bullpen actually isn't so bad, bringing out Elmer Dessens, Joel Peralta, Ambiorix Burgos (!) and Jimmy Gobble. The Mariners tacked on a run off Burgos in the 7th inning when Jeremy Reed singled and Ichiro drove him in a little bit later, making it 12-1.

At this point, I remember the family behind us having a conversation that went something like this:

Mom: "Now see, the guys in white are the Mariners. They're the home team. The guys in the blue uniforms are..." (pauses, either forgetting the team name or wanting her kid to speak up)

Little kid: "Evil."

Josh, cracking up: "I don't think the Royals are competent enough to be evil."

Then again, this is the same family that a few innings ago, the little kid asked "How come the Mariners players all start off with a ball and a strike on them and the other guys don't?"

The spelling bee thingy was a new clip, for Johjima. And of course, the guy who actually got it right was Japanese. I expected it to be the Pineiro one since he was pitching and all.

The "Ask the Mariners" was "What TV show would you want to be a guest star on?" I didn't get all the responses, but it was something like:

Hargrove: "Baywatch."
Sexson: "Survivorman." (What the hell is that?)
Bloomquist: "Grey's Anatomy." (The crowd cheered.)
Sherrill: "24."
Moyer: "CSI."
Beltre: "Friends." A pause. He looks at some guys off camera. "Why you laughing?"

Also, I don't think Carl Everett got the memo that said you're supposed to hit a home run on your birthday. So no cakewalk for him.

Ichiro was actually a home run short of the cycle. Josh and I sort of wondered if he'd get another plate appearance, but then they put in Bloomquist to play right field in the 8th. That was sort of lame. Nothing against Willie in this case, but it's not often you get a shot at something like that.

I really feel sort of bad for the Royals. I mean, they're just TERRIBLE, and aside from centerfielders, they don't seem to be capable of drafting and developing any real talent. The thing is, at some point, don't you have to wonder whether there's any point in continuing to put such a team out on the field? Josh pointed me at the amusing blog Royals Review, where they periodically contrast the 2006 Royals to the 2003 Tigers, the 1962 Mets, and the 1941 Phillies, all well-known for their complete inability to play baseball. The sad part is, the 2006 Royals are actually in last place compared to those others. This is not only a bad team, this has the potential to be a historically bad team.

Wheeee, that was fun. Just a few hours before heading to the game, I suggested that it might be cool if Raul Ibanez got a home run for his birthday, and he did just that. Did you know that June 3rd is Carl Everett's birthday? Maybe he will hit a home run for his birthday too. That would be nice. I really wish I could go to June 8th's game with a big "誕生日おめでとうございます城島さん!" sign for Johjima, but it's an afternoon game. Damn. Petagine's birthday is June 7th (and Emiliano Fruto's is June 6th), too. Busy week.

Short version: Jamie Moyer got a 93-pitch, 2-hit, 2-hour complete-game shutout victory over the Kansas City Royals as the Mariners roiled the Royals, 4-0. This is sort of like saying "The Mariners went to the bakery and bought a cake and walked home with it," except it's more like "Jamie Moyer was just sitting there and some dude handed him a cake. It was decorated with back-to-back home runs by Jose Lopez and Raul Ibanez. Yuniesky Betancourt brought the paper plates and napkins and double plays, and everyone had a lovely walk." Besides the two home runs off of Bobby Keppel's 82nd and 83rd pitches of the night, the Mariners scored two runs in the 8th inning off Jeremy "It doesn't matter if I suck, I'm a Royal" Affeldt.


Shortest. Game. Ever.

To be honest, there isn't really very much to say about this game. It really is the shortest complete pro baseball game I remember attending. Not very much offense was mustered on either side. As a matter of fact, I was marvelling that it was only like 8:25pm at the start of the 7th inning, but wondering whether the game might go into extra innings if neither side could manage to score a run.

The bottom of the 7th inning really was probably the most exciting few minutes of the game in terms of offense; the 7th inning stretch was over, the game started again, Bobby Keppel threw his 82nd pitch of the evening to Jose Lopez, and BAM! it was over the left-field scoreboard. Neat! Then Birthday Boy Ibanez stepped up, and smacked the first pitch again into right field, deep, deeper, going, going, gone! Lopez's went 373 feet, Ibanez's went 351. Still, that was pretty cool. Richie Sexson came up and I was like "Okay, now it's Richie's turn to hit one," and a few pitches later he TOO hit a huge line drive out to left field. This one bounced into the platform between the scoreboard and the left field wall, though, and landed back on the field; Richie hadn't really been running hard since he thought it was a home run, so as he tried to get to second base, he was tagged out by a mile and credited with a single. Whoops.

Looking at my scorecard, between simple groundouts and double plays, Yuniesky Betancourt had a hand in acquiring 15 of the 27 outs. There were 6 straight 6-3 plays, and one that should have been a 6-4 but he threw the ball about two feet to the left of Lopez and into right field instead. There were 3 double plays involving him; two 6-4-3's and a 1-6-3. And the other three outs were popups, none of which were actually really in his territory, of course, but Betancourt's boundaries extend pretty much from Ibanez to the ball girl to the pitcher to the second base umpire, I think.

Seriously, though, Betancourt's glovework was fantastic. In the third inning, after Mientkiewicz had been hit by a pitch, Angel Berroa lined a ball at Betancourt hard. He got the ball but fell on his butt with the backward momentum, but WHILE SITTING ON THE GROUND still managed to flip the ball to Jose Lopez in time to get the double play. It was insane. In the 9th inning, he managed to get a grounder by John Buck, while running way back in the hole, and still fired it to first base in time. He's just one hell of a player; he makes the hard plays look routine and the superb plays look normal.

Beltre also had a hell of a nice stop off Esteban German in the 8th inning, where he went down on a knee to stop the ball, ended up spinning around on the ground with the momentum of it, but still trapped it and transferred it in time to throw it to first base off one knee.

The "Stump The Broadcaster" trivia was "What player holds the single-season record for most AB without a sacrifice hit?" Rick Rizzs had to choose between three players -- two of them were Frank Thomas and Garret Anderson, I forget the third -- and he went with Frank Thomas, but the answer was actually Anderson. Thomas has actually gone his entire career without ever hitting a sacrifice (bunts, I assume -- sac flies seem to be counted separately on b-ref), but Anderson has the record for single-season at-bats without a sacrifice, mostly because he gets more at-bats because he doesn't know how to take a walk.

I spent half the game bouncing up and down and singing "M-I-E-N-T-K-I-E-W-I-C-Z" over and over again. For some reason, I couldn't come up with a good tune to sing "G-R-U-D-Z-I-E-L-A-N-E-K"; I think it's got something to do with the hop of the "double-u". Instead, I ended up just referring to him as Grudzilla.

Anyway, yay, book club today! Saturday! 5pm! Elliott Bay! Yankees suck, hooray! Royals suck too! Joel Pineiro vs. Seth Etherton, whoever the heck that is.