Bad Jeremy was scheduled to be on this podcast to talk about either real hockey (if the Devils won) or his NHL 12 team (if the Devils lost), but he decided to go see Avengers instead. So Chris and I are back to talk more about soccer, including Lionel Messi’s record-breaking Saturday and the FA Cup Final. The Washington Nationals and the interesting Phillies-Nationals rivalry are also discussed.
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Lately, it seems like an epic Josh Hamilton night is likely to be of the not-so-good variety, but last night was epic and historic in a very on-the-field, baseball kind of way: https://twitter.com/#!/Espngreeny/status/200170998681710592 Hamilton hit four home runs in a game against the previously self-defying hot Orioles, which also is historic because it probably is the best night anybody’s had in Baltimore since the days when Gram and Emmylou were singing “Streets of Baltimore.”
And this time, I was the one learning a lesson after a Josh Hamilton epic night, finally getting an answer to a question I’d had since I was a kid: When you hit a home run, do you get an RBI for yourself? The answer is yes, and it came courtesy of the radio call that declared Hamilton had four two-run homers, an eight-RBI night. I can do that math.
When your baseball team is in a bad way like the Tigers have been, what can they do to get out of the collective slump? It’s a question as old as baseball, but if you’re playing in the AL Central anytime between the 1990s and the present day, the return path to winning ways runs through Kansas City. If you can get them to come over to your place, all the better. Mix in young Rick Porcello’s righting ship, add a pinch of Victor Martinez’s happy return to the clubhouse (if not the playing field), and extract Delmon Young’s unproductive toxicity. Score five runs in the first inning. Allow that to rise into a 9-0 lead. Let settle over the remaining five innings into a 9-3 victory.
Yo peeps. Take some time out of your workday and listen to the third ALDLAND podcast. Yeah, we’re still talking about soccer and baseball, but really there’s not much more else to talk about because a) the NBA is a myth and b) if you say you are interested in the NFL draft beyond who your team drafted then Chris Cunico and I both believe that you are lying. However I do promise that a future podcast will feature discussion of hockey, the least popular sport on the planet.
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While I was generally unplugged last week, bdoyk forwarded me this article from ESPN New York, which reports:
Detroit Tigers left fielder Delmon Young apologized to his team and fans Friday, just before getting arraigned on a hate crime harassment charge for a fight at his hotel during which police say he yelled anti-Semitic epithets.
Young posted a $5,000 bond at a brief hearing in Manhattan court and was released less than an hour before the Tigers’ game against the Yankees. He faces a misdemeanor aggravated harassment charge that entails targeting someone for his or her religious beliefs. If convicted, he could face up to a year in jail.
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The Tigers arrived in New York at 10:30 p.m. Thursday after their plane sat on the tarmac for 2 hours, 15 minutes in Detroit, according to Leyland.
Around 2:30 a.m., Young was standing outside of the Hilton New York. Nearby, a group of about four Chicago tourists staying at the hotel were approached by a panhandler wearing a yarmulke and a Star of David around his neck, according to police. After, as the group walked up to the hotel doors, Young started yelling anti-Semitic epithets, police said.
It was not clear whom Young was yelling at, but he got into a tussle with the Chicago group, and a 32-year-old man was tackled and sustained scratches to his elbows, according to police and the criminal complaint.
Not good. Since their hot start, the Tigers have been in a free fall, dropping eight of their last ten games in series against Texas, Seattle, and the Yankees. Perhaps even more concerning has been the lack of offensive production widely expected and on display in the season-opening series against Boston and Tampa Bay. Young is a starter because of his bat. He’s a defensive liability and now a mental and legal liability going forward, whatever “going forward” means for Young vis-a-vis the Tigers. Simply put, this was not the type of offensive production Jim Leyland and Tigers fans were looking for out of the streaky Young this year.
Aldland’s weekly podcast is back. Yours truly, along with astronaut-hating Chris Cunico, are back to discuss more Champions League soccer and some of the goings on in the MLB this past weekend. So tell your boss not to bother you for 25 minutes and put this bad boy on your computer/iPod/whatever.
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I’m sort of cheating with the second featured film in ALDLAND’s Silent Film Series, because a) it already is a silent film and b) its selection largely has to do with the music indirectly associated with it. Still, I’m guessing most artists would be willing to cheat a little if it meant avoiding a sophomore slump, so I don’t feel bad at all.
And this short (7:23) movie really is kind of beautiful. It’s amateur footage shot on 8 millimeter film by members of the Capurso family depicting an outing to see the Yankees play the Tigers on a sunny summer afternoon at old Tigers Stadium on August 4, 1956. It opens with scenes of downtown Detroit as the family heads to the ballpark, where the Tigers would win a game that featured home runs by both Mickey Mantle and Al Kaline.
Of greater interest to me is the Tigers’ pitcher that day, Virgil “Fire” Trucks. He’s the great uncle of guitarist Derek Trucks and was no slouch on the mound. From a Peter Gammons profile piece:
Virgil Oliver Trucks was born on April 26, 1917. He won 177 Major League games from 1941 until he retired in 1958. Ted Williams once said he might have been “the hardest throwing right-hander I ever faced.”
He is one of four pitchers who threw two no-nos in a single season and he finished fifth in the American league MVP race in 1953 for the White Sox (he started that season with the Browns). And back when the Tigers won the 1945 World Series, Detroit’s great staff was called “TNT” — Dizzy Trout, (MVP) Hal Newhouser and Trucks were three of the best in the game.
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Go back to the beginning. Andalusia of the Alabama-Florida League. 1938. Including the playoffs[, he] struck out 448 batters.
448. That, Sweet Melissa, is the most strikeouts ever recorded in an organized professional baseball season.
And for the full season, he was 25-6, with a 1.25 ERA and two no-hitters.
After a strong 1939 split between Alexandria and Beaumont, in 1940 he pitched for Beaumont in the Texas League and threw another no-hitter, in 1941 threw another no-no for Buffalo in the International League and by the time he made his debut on Sept. 27, 1941, he had four Minor League no-hitters on his resume.
Somewhere along the way, they tried to figure out how hard he threw. “They found an old Army gun,” says Trucks. “It read 105 miles an hour.”
Gammons’ piece is full of stories about Virgil, including how he helped the Tigers win the World Series after taking two years off to join the war effort, how he nearly became the only pitcher ever to throw three no-hitters in one season, how he’d add two more World Series rings to his total, and how he decided, after meeting with Derek– who keeps one of Virgil’s baseball cards on his Gibson– and learning that his great nephew is considered one of the best guitarists who ever lived, that maybe he ought to start listening to the Allman Brothers Band (the 95-year-old former pitcher’s nephew, Butch Trucks, was a founding member of that band, with which Derek now plays).
The younger member of the Capurso family who uploaded this added some generic classical music from the London Metropolitan Orchestra, but I maintain that it’s best experienced silently, the original audio being lost to technology, and the music of Virgil’s descendants yet to be born.
So you are sitting there, on your couch (or perhaps chair), unfulfilled. Don’t pretend like it’s not true. And you’re thinking to yourself, my life could be a whole heck of a lot better if ALDLAND started doing weekly (bi-weekly?) podcasts. Well start listening to the beginning of your new life. This week, new contributor Chris Cunico drops by to discuss European soccer and the beginning of the MLB season. Listen, weep with joy, and begin eagerly awaiting the next in what is hopefully a long line of ALDLAND podcasts.
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The Tigers got back to their winning ways this afternoon after a disappointing ninth inning yesterday in which Justin Verlander finally was allowed to sow the seeds of his own defeat by coming back to beat the Rays 7-2. Fresh-faced rookie Drew Smyly– filling in for the injured Doug Fister– struggled early but found his bearings long enough for Brennan Boesch to drive in four runs and secure the win.
I suppose that could mean a lot of things. If my coworkers and I all were millionaires, though, a birthday party on an airplane might not be so bad, especially if you like gladiator movies.
ALDLAND 