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Baseball Musings:

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SI’s Luft on Grimsley

David Pinto goes to the place I think all discussion about PEDs has to go, but in a comment far down the page Keith Levenberg takes it one step further. Well worth reading down the page if you have set ideas about drugs and the games.
I was going to link to Deadspin’s sober speculation of the contents of the redacted information in the Grimsley affadavit (about him, not by him), but the link from the affidavit to Albert Pujols’ trainer, Chris Mihfield, is too tenuous. Anyone who has hung around with professional athletes in the last 20 some odd years (and probably longer) knows that all follow the supplements, vitamins, and enhancement products to some extent. Mihfield recommending a guy to Grimsley who had bennies is a far cry from a smoking gun pointing at Pujols.

But then I think we need a lot less hysteria.

Holy humidor! Rockies are for real

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Yahoo! Sports

Todd Helton is quoted in this story as saying that the humidor helps the Rockies on the road: “Before they used the humidor, breaking pitches did not break as much at Coors as at sea level, so when the Rockies went on the road, they had to adjust to breaking pitches that actually broke.”

Do balls coming out of the humidor break more than those kept in the outside atmosphere? I don’t see why they should. The issue is how far the ball goes when hit, no?

LaRoche’s disorder in spotlight

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Newsday.com

Adam LaRoche’s problem, apparently, is ADD. He won’t take medication for it, however, or make excuses, which is why he sometimes looks like he isn’t paying attention to the game. Or he doesn’t hustle, as in a play in Monday’s game against the Nats. According to the experts quoted in this story, if LaRoche took the right medication he’d be a better baseball player. But there are a lot of people these days who say that taking the ADD medication helps them focus better, too, even if they haven’t been diagnosed with the disease. Since LaRoche can function on the extraordinary level of a major leaguer without taking medication, can his disease be bad enough that he should be allowed performance enhancing drugs his teammates and opponents aren’t allowed?

I’m just asking.

A funny bit of business

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MLB – Cleveland Indians/Seattle Mariners Box Score Saturday May 6, 2006 – Yahoo! Sports

Seattle manager Mike Hargrove was tossed from this game in the third inning, and one of his coaches got tossed in the seventh, both for arguing balls and strikes. The odd thing is that Seattle starter Joel Pineiro struck out six and walked none in the game. Could the arguing have made a difference? (And I know that coach Mike Goss was chucked because the home plate ump appealed to the third base coach on righty Richie Sexson’s checked swing, rather than the traditional first base ump, but maybe by that point the ump was rattled.)

AL Hitter and Pitcher of the Month

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mlb.com

No point in digging deep into Jason Giambi’s numbers since mid-season last year, yet, but he was certainly the dominant AL hitter in the second half last year and the has continued in that role this spring. I continue to have difficulty ascertaining whether it was steroids that made him a great hitter and an MVP or not.  Certainly the braying of those who thought his accomplishments all came because he was juiced has died down, but we don’t seem to be any closer to agreeing about what steroids can do to improve a hitter’s performance. Assuming Giambi is clean now, since he’s surely tested regularly, how can he continue to rank among baseball’s best hitters?

BBTF’s Game Chatter Discussion

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Cleveland 91-63 at Kansas City 52-101 7:10pm ET
In the Guide I wrote about Cleveland farmhand Jason Stanford: “He was arrested in September for disorderly conduct and resisting arrest, and then missed his court appearance. It’s too bad, since control was always one of his bests qualities.”

Today Stanford called the magazine’s publisher and said he hadn’t missed the court date. The Baseball Think Factory page above has links to Cleveland Plain Dealer stories about the original arrest (JS made disparaging comments to a man wearing a pink shirt, apparently, which led to a bit of a brawl) and the court announcing after Stanford apparently missed his court date that they’d written the wrong date on his appearance ticket. So it wasn’t his fault. The links don’t work, however, so I’m basing this on the postings on the BTF page.

I’m certainly sorry for drawing on the mistaken AP story originally and am happy to point out the error while wearing pink (actually salmon) slacks.