Signals over the air?

Thursday, I don't care about you

smcs, you've grabbed my idea already - I'll jump in later in the song: Thursday - watch the walls instead
That's pretty well all we can do until pitchers and catchers report.  It's been a long winter.

Eric Hinske signs in T-Bay?  I have to think that would be his last choice, given the amount of abuse he has taken over the years from the Happy Heckler, Robert Szasz

Signals Over The Air would definitely have been the better headline here. Nice call (and taste), CJF.
Hinske in Tampa? With the Heckler? Amazing.

Arnsberg was just on the FAN.  I don't know if he's a good pitching coach but you've got to love his enthusiasm.  He said that Ryan is on schedule and that he's throwing all his pitches and might be ready for opening day but the Jays might stay on the cautious side and hold him back a bit.  The surgeon (Nemcheck) sees no problem with Ryan pushing himself.  Nothing much else except he reiterated that they don't like to teach the splitter for since it's hard on the arm.

On a side note, Swirsky reported that ESPN is reporting that Schilling has a shoulder(?) injury and the Red Sox are trying to void his contract.

Here is the link.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3235556

I was devouring my latest baseball magazine purchase, Sporting News - Fantasy Baseball - despite the fact I despise Fantasy Baseball. When I noticed this interesting comment about Matt Stairs, "Stairs regained his power stroke last season after altering his leg kick at the plate."

It made me go warm all over (admittedly, it doesn't take much to do that to me). When I was watching him bat last year he seemed damn near invincible and I couldn't understand his mastery at the plate. IF there really is a simple way he has improved his performance his fall-off this year might be quite a bit less than we feared.

All that stands between us and glory is being able to handle righty pitchers (er...I realize the Sox, Spankies and the re-vitalized Rays may have some minor input - not to mention Cleveland and Detroit in the Central and LA and Seattle in the West).

With Stairs still hot, Overbay, Wells and Zaun healthy, Thomas promising to show up on time and in shape, Rios and Hill continuing to mature and Eckstein and Rolen both huge improvements against righties - wow.

Schilling and the Sox are in a hissy fit over his shoulder injury and the 2008 contract!

Oh this is good news for us!

If the Shill can't leave the starting gate then the Sox have Beckett, DiceK, Wakeford and the two Fee-noms Buchholz and Lester with only Tavarez to back them up. NO WAY - Buccholz or Lester can go 150 innings. Either they've got to make a move - (Santana anyone - oh ya, that trains left the gate? Last second intervention to get Bedard - oh ya, that trains left the gate too?) or kill their bullpen as the season progresses. This could be very yummy.

Joe Sheehan in his chat today at BP metions the Jays as neck & neck with the Angles for 5th best ..in the AL if I remember correctly. Shockingly positive.

I'm bored so I'll bring this up even though I'm sick of the topic.  Does anyone else find it disturbing that, quoted from ESPN "McNamee's representatives turned over gauze pads and syringes they said had Clemens' blood".

This actually makes me doubt McNamee's story or at least makes me doubt that he was somehow in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Why would you keep this stuff, let alone keep it for 8 years.

That's bug house crazy.

Maybe they were in the jar next to his fingernail clippings from 1998?

Crazy like a fox. If you were the most vulnerable, the most dispensable party to an incident such as the one alleged, and you were able actually to keep physical evidence that what you said was true, so that it would be very difficult to disprove your version of events, wouldn't you keep such evidence?  As long as needed?

This could have interesting implications ... while the Mitchell report is already one of the lousiest pieces of internal investigations I've ever heard of (Frank Thomas & Jason Giambi being the extent of active players interviewed), the fallout from the Clemens / McNamee thing could make it really interesting - as long as there is a definitive answer one way or the other.

If McNamee is found to be a liar in this instance, the entire report really turns into a sham.  I can see Congress getting a lot more involved, or at a minimum telling Selig, "Nice try, Bud, now do a real job or we'll do our own." 

If Clemens is found to be a liar and McNamee telling the truth, then that gives a lot more weight to the Mitchell report.

If it remains ambiguous as to who is telling the truth, then we're stuck in this ground right now where nothing is anywhere near what should be required to be credible.

Sheehan does seem quite high on the 2008 Jays. He says it's the best team roster since the 1993 championship club. And like Wilner and some Bauxites, he thinks McDonald should be starting over Eckstein b/c of the pitching staff's groundball tendencies.

While slumming over at "Sons of Sam Horn" I noticed this little item in a pitching thread; Wakefield has an injured shoulder, left over from 07 when he was left off the post season team. They say, "Wakefields health is a huge risk going forwards." Also Paps shoulder is "an issue" and their number one starters name is Josh "Blisters" Beckett.

Delicious, just like the apple! 'Bout time some others started to know injuries.

I always do feel kind of bad when I'm happy that another teams player is injured.

Yeah but when Schilling is involved ... it's still not right ... but it's more understandable because he is the world's most annoying human.

When I heard that the Jays were selling tickets directly to Sox and Tigers fans I didn't mind. Now I've learned that they're able to purchase tickets before anyone in Toronto... Now that just seems like a smack in the face to me.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/blogs/baseball

"I'm bored so I'll bring this up even though I'm sick of the topic.  Does anyone else find it disturbing that, quoted from ESPN "McNamee's representatives turned over gauze pads and syringes they said had Clemens' blood".

This actually makes me doubt McNamee's story or at least makes me doubt that he was somehow in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Why would you keep this stuff, let alone keep it for 8 years.

That's bug house crazy."

If anything is bug house crazy it is letting people have access to your body's by products. I keep mine in well labeled jars in my pantry. You can never be too careful with all those spies everywhere.

Obviously I have a special pantry in my basement for this kind of storage! One would have o be pretty unwell to store that kind of stuff in their kitchen!

Eric Hinske signs in T-Bay?  I have to think that would be his last choice, given the amount of abuse he has taken over the years from the Happy Heckler, Robert Szasz

After reading the Szasz entry in Wikipedia, I'm disappointed all that vitriol wasn't reserved exclusively for The Dude.  The fact that he does the same thing to a bunch of other players feels strangely like cheating to me.

I may check out that book he wrote though; there's clearly a lot more to the guy than a set of leather lungs.

You are right that the ticket sale is a slap to the face. OTOH, the Jays feel loyalty to their season ticket holders (they give them a party after all) and not the walk up crowd. The flex packs were already available, so you could have already gotten tickets for those series. If the games are sold out, I would hope that it would motivate more people to put their butts in the seats, but who can afford going to the ballpark anymore? I think it is good for the game to have fans go to other ballparks to see their team play. It could be nice to have dedicated and knowledgeable Detroit fans (or Boston) come for a visit.

On Sosh, Camden Yards is referred to as Fenway South - a southern home field for the Red Sox. Now they have a Fenway North too.

I think the Jays' actions are unprecedented in offering fans of other teams first crack at single game tickets. It's worse than a slap in the face, it's an admission that the Blue Jays business plan is to play a Boston Shamrock-like role to the Yankees/Red Sox Globetrotters show. The games will be stacked with Red Sox fans.

I'll be curious to read about this on Sosh. I suspect that if they don't already view the Jays as a joke they will now.

Apparently if your e-mail is registered in bluejays.com you can also purchase tickets to the home opener already.

You are right that the ticket sale is a slap to the face.

I think that's a bit of a strong statement. 

I think the reason the Jays are doing this has less to do with their own fans and instead is because they want to offer Red Sox and Tigers fans tickets before Detroit and Boston's home team's single gamers go on sale.  It's been a while since Toronto has experienced single-game madness like these cities, but as someone on Chicago's North Side I can speak from the experience here - every year, the minute they release tickets on-line, all baseball fans are on their computer, with multiple browsers, attempting to get through.  Tickets to most of the good games are gone within an hour or so (I actually think its closer to 15-30 minutes).  I assume the process is similar in Detroit and Boston.  The Jays probably figure that by offering their tickets up earlier, they can find some fans in those cities who want to be certain to get tickets to see their own team. There is usually a greater fear of not getting any tickets than is reasonable, as I don't know anyone yet that hasn't been able to get Cubs tickets the morning they're released (provided their on-line at the start).  As a result, selling the tickets after Sox and Tigers open their single-games would probably not result in as many sales.

I don't know the reasons for the long delay by all teams in offering their own single-game tickets, but I imagine it has to do with ensuring that they can accommodate all their season ticket demand, flex-pack purchases, and corporate (large group) tickets.

Will all fans perceive it the same way I am? nope.  Does that in itself imply it might be a slap in the face?  Perhaps, according to your definition of slap-in-the-face.

I don't mind the other games but the home opener definitely should not be offered. It always sells out and it will be embarassing this year if there are too many Red Sox fans in attendance.

Barry is right. Home Opener is/should be off limits. This whole thing makes Godfrey look pretty bad, but I'll give him benefit of the doubt that he isn't a complete moron and that Jays fans get first crack at the opener (Its gonna sell out anyways). Red Sox fans who want to come to Toronto, will come to Toronto anyways and buy the best seats they can buy regardless. Giving them better seats over Jays fans is ridiculous. Market research has always indicated that visiting team fans make up 35% of the total attendance at most at the RC, which certainly seems to be less than at Camden Yards. Fenway North, not yet.

For what it's worth, as of 10:15 this morning when I logged on to buy my tickets, the best seats on the 100 level were in 130D row 19, which sadly, is what I had to settle on.

I don't mind the other games but the home opener definitely should not be offered. It always sells out and it will be embarassing this year if there are too many Red Sox fans in attendance.

Meh ... it's 7:15 pm on a Friday.  If there are enough Red Sox fans that make that trip and take the day off ... power to them.  More likely I think is it will be Toronto-based Sox fans that give them the #'s.

Plus, Godfrey says that they'll cut off the tickets if too many get sold, so it sounds like they're sensitive to that.

VBF, how were you already able to get tickets?

Inside Pitch subscribers got a pre-sale email today. If anyone wants me to try and forward them the email, I can try, just drop me a line.

jeff-holloway     at         hotmail        dot      com

Availability was very disappointing. I've always been able to get at least 130/113 A.

The actual news article from Blair indicates that tickets for the Home Opener have not been on sale for those in New England.