Who killed the doubleheader?

Thor's Day Thoughts

Major League Baseball may have its share of issues, but at least MLB fans aren't doing this:

The Secret to Surviving the Trade Deadline

On a warm summer's evening,

6:35 PM, Saturday, July 30th, 2011. Colorado Rockies at San Diego Padres. Game time temperature, 71 degrees. Partly Cloudy. 13 MPH winds.

on a train bound for nowhere,

Nearly two-thirds of the way through the season, the Rockies found themselves 6 games below .500, and 11 games back of the first place San Francisco Giants.

OSITF Links: Final Vote Edition

You will only find one link here: vote Alex Gordon & Todd Helton.

Time is running out to vote in the last man standing, MLB All-Star Game final vote. Currently there is slightly less than 5 hours before the polls close. Voting is unlimited so stuff as many ballots in the box as possible.

An Apple a Day Keeps the DL Away?

If it were only that simple...

I'm sure everyone remembers the scene from the movie Major League where Manager Lou Brown is arguing with Owner Rachel Phelps about the clubhouse equipment (or lack thereof). For those of you who didn't have the movie lines instantly pop into your head, here's a little refresher:

Lou Brown: How am I supposed to take care of my players with no hot water and no therapy equipment?
Rachel Phelps: Your players have to get a little tougher. What are they a bunch of pansies?
Lou Brown: Over 162 games and even tough guys get strained, a soar arm or a muscle pull.

We have just barely begun the 162-game journey and many of us fantasy baseball owners are already finding ourselves struggling to keep guys off the Disabled List. I'm sure every fantasy owner would gladly pay Edible Arrangements to deliver an apple a day to their fantasy standouts, if it only meant keeping them off the DL. In the 10-team Percell Fantasy Baseball League, each team is allotted 2 DL spots. Of the 20 spots across the league, 14 are currently filled, with 4-5 injured players occupying active roster spots either due to already full infirmaries or lackadaisical owners.

A Birthday Present for the A-Gordo Lovers

B brought up Gordo and the state where N stands for knowledge in the last post. Here's a shot of him in Nebraska last year, the final season for Rosenblatt. Here's hoping for the KC faithful that he shows a better side this season. Go Royals!

Now which assets were so endearing? On second thought, I don't want to know.

Bonus points to anyone who can name the other two players in the picture.

Love blooms in the Spring

My first contribution to Out Standing in the Field was intended to balance out some of the Rockies love fest, but the date (tomorrow specifically) changed my focus to another love fest or two. You see, tomorrow (April 8th) is my lovely wife's birthday and my love for her has led me to post about her love for Alex Gordon. You know the one; he of the striking smile, boyish good looks, sweet swing, and high expectations of many Royals fans. I guess Alex is something of a 'pretty' boy; I know my wife thinks so anyway. What hasn't been pretty for Alex is his transition from 2nd overall pick in the 2005 draft to big league mainstay.

Alex garnered a ton of attention his Junior year at the hated University of Nebraska, sweeping the collegiate baseball awards. According to Wikipedia, he won the Dick Howser Trophy, Golden Spikes Award, the Brooks Wallace Award and the ABCA Rawlings Player of the Year. He was an ESPY Award Finalist for the best Male College Athlete and earned 1st team All-American honors for the 2nd straight season. Talk about a can't miss draft prospect.

Most baseball fans can attest to the fact that Kansas City IS a baseball town without much hope (lately) for a REAL baseball team. Whether right or wrong, we poor, baseball starved, Royals fans placed super high expectations on Alex. He, along with Billy Butler, were to be the core of our future return to good baseball. Not only was 2007 the arrival of Alex, but the purse strings were loosened to the tune of $67 million. Maybe the tides were changing and KC would return to the promised land. Alex mustered a respectable (for a rookie) .247 BA and 15 HR and showed real promise. The expectations only increased when the Royals posted a great 69-93 record.

WHAT!?! 69-93 is a great record!?! Only for a Royals fan, who had suffered through 3 straight 100 loss seasons.

Alex posted similar numbers his sophomore year (.260/16), but 2009 brought an injury plague and Alex only played 49 games in the bigs. 2010 wasn't much better as Alex started the season on the DL and was later demoted to Triple AAA. Through it all, Heather has remained true.

2011 finds the second time that Alex has been rostered on my fantasy baseball team after the draft. Is it my love for her that makes me draft him, or the dopey hope that he finally lives up to his promise. I can say that Gordon brought me a nice piece in trade (Ethier) from another dopey hoped owner and the ire of my wife the first time around. Here's to the hope that his 6 extra-base hits in the first 6 games lead to a full season of them.

If that happens, my budding Spring-time love may bloom to full blown, Heather level, love fest.

Opening Day - A Family Tradition

There's something to be said for Spring Training, but Opening Day is when it all becomes real. Spring Training is a time for defrosting from a long cold baseball-less winter, warming up the muscles and gearing up for the season. But somewhere in the third or fourth week of March, the meaninglessness of the spring games set in, and baseball fans turn their sights towards Opening Day. Opening Day is when it all starts to matter, that's when we start keeping score. Filled with all the pomp and circumstance of a playoff atmosphere, the slate is wiped clean. Everyone has a renewed chance to compete for the right to play in October. No matter who your team is, there is a glimmer of hope, if only for a moment.

Opening Day is a Percell family tradition, at least for those of us in the mountain time zone.

It all started on April 9, 1993. Finally Major League Baseball was in Colorado. No more road trips across the nothingness of Kansas to see the "nearest-to" home team Kansas City Royals. Baseball was right here in our own backyard. I was in middle school at the time. My family bought 8 tickets so my two brothers and I could each take a friend along with my parents (Pictured Left to Right: Terri Coffan, Jay Percell, Mike Lotz, John (JT) Percell, Jerry Percell, Faith Percell, Jeff Percell, Gabe Ribas). We gathered with more than 80,000 of our closest friends in Mile High Stadium to celebrate my mom's birthday and the fact that we finally had a team of our own - the Colorado Rockies. Perhaps the most memorable part of the game was when Eric Young (Sr. as we now refer to him, pictured left) belted a lead-off home run off (then-soon-to-be Rockies pitcher) Kent Bottenfield.

That set the precedent. From then on, while not recognized by the federal government, Opening Day would be a holiday in the Percell Family.

April 26th, 1995 is another Opening Day's that will stand out above the rest. Coors Field had just been built and the Rockies had moved out of the massive football stadium that was Mile High. No one will recall the first time the Rockies played in Coors Field, as it came about a month before Opening Day in a two game end of Spring Training exhibition series with the New York Yankees using scab players, as the Players Union was on strike. Just before the season was to start with the replacement players, the union and owners settled their differences. The season was pushed back a month, so the real players could have a shortened Spring Training and Opening Day was set for April 26th that year.
My dad was out of town on business that week, returning to Denver on April 26th. It was snowing that day. Jay (my older brother) and I were both at Centaurus High School preparing to have baseball practice in the school gymnasium, when my mom called the school asking that we be dismissed from practice. My dad had flown into town and headed straight downtown, expecting to be able to find reasonably-priced seats on the street considering the weather. "I love it when a plan comes together." That was a cold, snowing off and then on again, night. Dante Bichette ended the game in walk-off fashion, blasting a 3-run home run in the bottom of the 14th inning. (Pictured Left to Right: Jay, JT, Jeff)

Since then, there have been many other birthdays celebrated at Coors Field - my wife's birthday is April 4th, and she married into the tradition. There was one other walk-off home run, Clint Barmes in 2005. Friday, we'll be celebrating JT and my birthdays (a few days belated) at Coors Field.

Happy Opening Day everyone, and don't forget to set your fantasy baseball lineups!

(Opening Day Lineups 4/9/1993)

(Opening Day 4/4/2005: Jeff and Jerry)

(Opening Day 4/3/2006: Jerry, Faith, Rachel, and Jeff)

(Opening Day 4/2/2007: Rachel, Isabelle [1st Regular Season Game], and Jeff)

(Opening Day 4/9/2010: Faith, JT, and Jerry)

"It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone."
- A. Bartlett Giamatti