And/or you can stop here in Portland to see the fence at PGE Park that Rodney McCray ran through. :eek:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mPMfiuCO-E

Mike Winters update (Milton Bradley's Aggravation if you haven't been keeping up)

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?...=.jsp&c_id=mlb

Gee, a MLB umpire swore at a player. I'm shocked. Shocked, I tell ya!

That's hardly news to anyone that's sat in the first coupla rows near home plate. Umpires, players, coaches and managers have been mofo-ing each other since....well....probably the last time the Cubs won a World Series. Ken Kaiser, for one, was world class at doing that.

Gotta admit that the umps really aren't supposed to be instigating it though, if that's what happened.

I think Patriot's Day is my favorite day of the year to skip class for day baseball.

Actually, they should be in the new stadium on Opening Day 2008.

As reported in the thread in the baseball forum, MLB discourages umpires from swearing back now. For example, with little suspensions at the ends of seasons.

Oh, my !
Now what?

Bos .278 3.87 5-5 W2
NY .288 4.46 7-3 W1
Cle .268 4.07 7-3 L1
LA .286 4.20 5-5 L3

Tough call.

Many different sources available...
 

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/07092...umpire_suspend

So he misses what... 3 or 4 regular season games, and no playoffs?

Nope, according to USA Today, he's gone for the playoffs too.

According to GarthB of the baseball forum (whose son is a pro umpire), sources in pro umpiring report that Winters was being groomed to be crew chief. That's probably gone now, which would be a far more significant punishment than missing a few games (reg. season or playoff).

Are crew chiefs paid extra? Or is it just a bragging kinda thingy?

Btw, it looks like the Yankees might be playing Cleveland, while the BoSox <b>won</b> the right to take 5 hour flights back and forth from the Left Coast. The other plus for the Yankees is that there's just a few less distractions in Cleveland to take the player's minds off of <i>beisbol</i>. Afaik, the night life in Cleveland is restricted to (1) going to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and (2) going down to the river and watching it burn.

******I think it is hilarious that the guy sending HR #756 baseball to the HOF has marked it with an asterisk. Hope he put a bunch of them on there, because I am sure the HOF will place it asterisk down in the display case. I don't think I would have paid 720Gs for it, though. Not that I have 720Gs.

Crew chiefs are paid significantly more -- as much as $100K more than rookies.

As for your knowledge of night life in Cleveland, you've obviously never been to the Flats (and if you think the R&R HOF is night life, you must go to bed at 7 pm).

I don't know who won the season series between Cleveland and Boston - would that decide the top team if they finish the season with the same record?

<i>Au contraire</i>, I spent a week there one day.

I've never been much of a baseball fan, until my son started getting interested. Now that I've been to two MLB games in the same season, both Mets, I'm starting to follow a lttle bit. And what happens? The Mets are totally fading! Augh! Losing to Washington?!?! Sheez, it's getting desperate here, and still one game to go against someone dangerous, and then Florida who should be easy to beat, but then so should have Washington been. Fortunately, Mason is the most optimistic little kid you've ever met, and he's "CERTAIN they'll pull it out. But even if they don't, they won both the games we went to! " That's my boy...

Ah...., the purity of youth! :)