213 Miles From Shea

Yesterday we took a look at the San Francisco Giants Players Signature Series Jerseys, and today we will take a look at the Boston Red Sox. It is also their first year having this line of clothing, which is slightly surprising. One would think with their National Market, they would have had it already. Anyway, let's take a look:

Like always, there are somethings I like, and somethings I don't. The only thing I'm really against with these is a picture of the player on the bottom of the back of each Jersey. Besides that, they actually look…good. For example, if on the Youk jersey the lose his photo, it's a nice Jersey. It has a WS badge, a badge of his facial hair, his nickname and the town nickname. It's pretty much that way for all of these that they have some creative elements and some head scratching elements.

The Mets and Braves start a series tonight in Turner Field as the Mets look to to some positive damage in the NL East. Last night the Mets just couldn't get it going as they dropped the series finale to the Pirates by the score of 3-1. Jon Niese looks to lead the Mets tonight against a familiar foe in Jair Jurrjens.

Jon Niese is 5-5 on the season with a 3.51 ERA. In his last five starts he has pitched 33.2 innings pitched with an ERA of 1.34 and 33 strikeouts. He has been something to watch of late as he has been utilizing his pitches beautifully. Two starts ago he pitched 7.2 innings, allowing 2 ER while striking out 7 getting a no decision. The Braves have the following numbers on Jon:

Uggla 6-16, 3 2B

Jones 4-8, 2 2B, HR

Ross 3-8, 3B, HR

McCann 0-6

Schafer 0-5

Jair Jurrjens is having a terrific year as he is 8-2 with a league leading 1.82 ERA. His only “bad” start recently was against the Mets as he allowed 4 runs, 3 earned over 6 innings of work. The Mets have the following numbers on Jair:

Pagan 2-27, 2B

Reyes 3-20, 2B

Beltran 2-19

Murphy 7-21, 2 2B, 3B

Bay 3-15, 2B

Harris 7-14, 2B, 3B

Thole 3-8

Let's Go Mets!

Citi-FIeld is no longer special. Well ok, it is still the home of the Mets, but part of what made our centerfield iconic was the eateries. Remember way back when, all the way back to 2009 when Citi opened its doors? Part of the draw was the Shake Shack, Blue Smoke, etc, all in the outfield with the Mets skyline from Shea on top of it.

When people talk about the most recent surge of ballparks, they are talking about what the literature calls post-modern ballparks (yes seriously, there is literature in academia on the subject I'm about to share with you). Generally ballparks are broken into three categories. There are the old ballparks like Wrigley and Fenway, the modern ballparks like Shea Stadium and then the post-modern ballparks. The modern ballparks were McDonaldized, in that they were about efficiency and things like that. Cookie-cutters are the other name for them but they were designed purposefully (to make money). The post-modern ballparks are an example of a manufactured de-McDonaldization where they are still designed to be efficient, but are also manufactured to look like they aren't, to bring back fans to grimy world of corporation ran baseball. (All of this is based on a course, Sport in Society, offered at the University of Maryland College Park with they the cynical comments being my own).

Our Center Field was advertised to us as an example of something that was supposed to be unique to Citi-Field, but turns out, it isn't.

In today's Washington Post, which you can read here, Dan Steinberg reveals the new attraction opening at Nationals Park. They have their own Union Square, featuring the Shake Shack, Box Fritas, Taqueria and Blue Smoke. The article specifically mentions how the Shake Shack will feature Citi Field pricing from back in 2009. (Also, tip of that hat to my friends at 15Min2Exit for the link)

One of my personal qualms with Nationals Park is its lack of identity. They pay homage to all DC sports, then pay homage to the greats of baseball from other teams, including rivals, on the concourse. If you walk in one one entrance it feels like a block party, if you walk in other side, it feels like a serious baseball establishment. Now they are adding another layer of problems where on one side of the stadium they offer DC's finest food in Ben's Chili Bowl and on the other side of the stadium they have food from New York. The exact food from New York!

Bottom line: when I go to a ball park, I expect it to be a different experience, even if that different experience is manufactured. When I'm in Baltimore, I don't expect to find New York Deli (oops, they have that), when I'm in Queens, I expect to find New York food that I can't find in other ballparks, and when I'm in DC, I expect to actually know who the home team is based on the stadium.

(I do recognize of course that the Mets probably had little to do with this at all)

Oh No! I thought we would avoid it this year, I really thought we would avoid it, but they came out with another like of Players Signature Series clothing. If you recall, in 2009 the Mets were the only team involved, and no big names were really involved. Last season it was the Yankees, Phillies, Mets and Twins, where all of the big names of the Mets that were involved got injured or just had bad seasons. This year the Mets avoided it all together, or were asked not to participate (who knows) and the four teams involved this year are the Yankees, Phillies, Giants and Red Sox. It also seems this year it is just T-shirts and Jerseys but not hats (shame because I'm starting a ridiculous article series on July 1st regarding hats).

Anyway let's take a look at the jerseys the Giants players “made”:

After looking at these, I think I realized why I dislike the ones with an image of the player on the back below the numbers, despite that they are tacky. I'm a fairly short person (with a small torso), so if I was wearing Lincecum's for example, that would mean, even with a small Jersey, Lincecum would be on or below my butt, awkward. I do like Matt Cain's though, only because I'm a fan of writing above and below the numbers (but I don't like camo or his nickname or most importantly the Giants, so that would never happen).

The NL All-Star votes have been updated online, and Jose Reyes is starting to close in on Tulo! But before we get into it, if the voting was to end today (last week's leaders in parenthesis):

C – Brian McCann, Atlanta Braves (McCann)

1B – Albert Pujols, St. Louis Cardinals (Pujols)

2B – Brandon Phillips, Cincinnati Reds (Phillips)

3B – Placido Polonco, Philadelphia Phillies (Polonco)

SS – Troy Tulowitzki, Colorado Rockies (Tulowitzki)

OF – Ryan Braun, Milwaukee Brewers (Braun)

OF – Lance Berkman, St. Louis Cardinals (Holliday)

OF – Matt Holliday, St. Louis Cardinals (Berkman)

So the only change is not really a change but Berkman passes Holliday to be second on the OF chart, but they are both on the same team, and Holliday leads Ethier, next up but 400 K. The story for me this week is a push for Reyes. Two weeks ago he was at about 77 K, and Tulo was at 140 K. This week Tulo is at 182 K, and Reyes is at 120 K. Jose is slowly closing the gap between the two, and even if he doesn't get starter recognition, he is going to make the roster.

The Mets and Pirates finish up their four game series tonight as the Mets look for a series win which would improve the team to .500 on the season and 5-2 on the road trip going into Atlanta. The first game of the series featured Gee's 7th win of the season as the Mets won 8-1. The Pirates came back from the opener loss to take the second game 3-2, despite Dickey's hard work. Yesterday, the Mets responded with a fantastic outing by Capuano and a late offensive explosion as the Mets took game three 7-0. Today Mike Pelfrey will go up against Paul Maholm.

Pelfrey is 3-4 this season with a 5.35 ERA. As you probably call, his start against the Pirates was horrid as he allowed 7 ER over 5 innings, with all 7 runs coming in the first three innings (a game the Mets eventually won). Last time out, Pelfrey bounced back with a 6 inning, 2 earned run performance. The Pirates have the following numbers on Big Pelf:

McCutchen 6-12

Diaz 3-11

Walker 2-11, 2B, HR

Cedeno 3-9, 2B, 3B

Tabata 0-7

The Mets batters will go up against Paul Maholm, who has a nice ERA (3.39) despite a terrible record (2-7). His last start was very good as he one hit the Diamondbacks over 6 innings of work. His start before that was bad (or good if you are us) as he allowed 7 runs, 6 earned in 5.2 innings against the Mets. The Mets have the following numbers on Paul:

Reyes 8-22

Beltran 8-17, 2 2B, 2 HR

Pagan 6-15, 2 2B, HR

Paulino 3-5

Murphy 2-2

Let's Go Mets!

There are whispers about realigning the divisions in baseball, or just blowing them up. There are two motivating factors behind the MLB doing this. First is they are trying to add that fifth playoff spot for each league. Right now that is messy because it would have to be a second Wild Card team. The problems still arises with the second team where the second team could have a vastly better record than one of the division record.

The plan would then be to either realign the divisions show they are more competitive or just remove them completely. The main advantage of removing the divisions is that the problem of stacked divisions will be fixed for all of time. As you probably know, strong teams fluctuate over long periods of time. A stacked division this generation is not the same the next, so a simple realignment would not do the trick. The disadvantage of this is they want to make the leagues even if there are no divisions, probably by moving the Astros into the American League so they could be rivals with the Rangers. The problem here is now each league would have 15 teams. So either two teams, one in each league, always are off, or they will need to play interleague games all the time. The switch off doesn't work because teams would have to take turns not playing on the weekend, which has the best attendance rates.

The people that will make the uproar about daily interleague play would be the same people that would make an uproar about blowing up divisions in the first place. According to 105.7 in Baltimore, they say the chance of any of this happening is about 50%.

Just for fun, Ken Rosenthal suggested a new alignment:

AL Atlantic:

– Blue Jays

– Yankees

– Mets

– Orioles

– Nationals

AL Greater Lakes

– Twins

– Tigers

– Indians

– Pirates

– Teds

AL Pacific

– Mariners

– Giants

– Athletics

– Dodgers

– Angels

NL East

– Red Sox

– Phillies

– Braves

– Rays

– Marlins

NL Midwest

– Brewers

– Cubs

– White Sox

– Cardinals

– Royals

NL Southwest

– Rockies

– Diamondbacks

– Padres

– Rangers

– Astros

You can read his reasoning here and his proposal is as he says, radical. He does back it up with a thought process so I feel bad dismissing it with the following statement but the problem with the current alignment will occur with his as well. Some teams will rise to the top, there will be some divisions that for long periods of time that will be stronger than the others, and at the end of the day we still have the 15 vs 15 problem.

At the root of all of this is this question:

Are the leaders of the MLB ready to make it more like the NBA and NHL?

The title may be an exaggeration, but the Lehigh Valley IronPigs had a fairly good promotion over the weekend where they celebrated the Social Media World, which when you think about it really is infecting everything. Yesterday I was in Baltimore for an Orioles game and on the train ride in, we realized that the MTA (Maryland Transportation blah blah blah) has a facebook and a twitter. Why? I don't know! But they do.

So the IronPigs gave a salute out to twitter over the weekend as they donned these uniforms. What doesn't come out in the picture is how bright these jerseys were. They were the same color as Twitter (they look more like facebook here) and the white lettering was really white.

A nice touch was on the back, their names were all #Pigout, and with the front saying @IronPigs, they were celebrating the two symbols in the English language that Social Media has given a new meaning to.

Earlier today I wrote about the Brewers uniforms for Hispanic heritage night, what I didn't realize was three other teams wore special uniforms yesterday as well.

First off, if you go to the Brewers article, you will see that the Brewers Jersey was gold this year. As noted in the article, this was the 6th season that the Brewers have become the Cerveceros for a night, but it was the first time the Jersey was gold, so nice touch.

The Cardinals joined in on the action last night as they became the Cardenales to join in on the fun, which you can see here. Tip of my hat to the Cardinals for not becoming the Los Cardinals, which as I noted earlier, I feel is a backward complement in Hispanic Heritage nights.

The other jerseys came from the Padres vs Nationals game, which was a beautiful throwback game. The Padres came out in a sharp looking black and white jersey that was assisted by how crappy their uniforms normally look. The Nationals wore a bold Senators design where the front of the jersey was blank and the sides/numbers looked awesome.

Last night the Brewers showed off their Cerveceros Jerseys.

For the Brewers this has been a tradition going on for its sixth season, and it is a pretty nice one. Back when it started, the uniforms looked like this and last night for 2011 they looked like this.

Overall, it comes off a lot better than the “Los Mets” nights because it is easier and more appealing to take an English word and translate it into Spanish, rather than throwing the word “Los” in front to show Hispanic Heritage (because if don't write “The Mets” on jerseys, why should we write, “Los Mets”).

I have always been a fan of heritage days and nights, and when I see things like what the Brewers did last night, I begin to miss the Mets of the early and mid 2000's where they would have a heritage week and it wasn't just about what they morph the uniform into but a celebration of different cultures at Shea Stadium.

Oh and the icing on the cake? The Brewers will be doing the same thing for their German heritage night when the Brewers will become the Bierbrauers. Pictures to come once it happens.