Boston photo from user @rmarmstrong88 posted at 1:05am ET Friday night.
What a day. Nobody had their mind on baseball, not really, not even many players, not with the manhunt that was ongoing in Boston. The Red Sox/Royals game at Fenway was canceled as virtually the entire city and its suburbs were on lockdown. No public transportation. Employees told by authorities to go home. People told to stay in their homes. And then when they found the white hat guy in a boat and the stand-off ended after hours with authorities managing to bring him in alive– absolutely great work!!! seriously – there was a collective sigh throughout Boston, baseball and the country. You can’t blame anyone in Boston for being hungover tomorrow. Nobody lost sight of the victims. Not at all. You just couldn’t blame a City that had endured such stress from celebrating. And the word spread around baseball during many games in progress, and the people in charge of the scoreboards/PA in the stadiums spread the word, and people celebrated. It was a brutal week in America. It is wonderful that it seems to be over.
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I have become a really big fan of Intentional Talk on the MLB Network. At first, I didn’t warm to Kevin Millar, but the past few years, I have grown to love that show. Millar and Rose are great together, and Millar is hilarious. If you’re familiar with the show, you know that there is a catch phrase of Millar’s which accompanies an embarrassing moment of a player or fan caught on video– “GOT HEEEEM”. Got him. It annoyed me at first. It grew on me. Anyway, today, after the suspect was finally arrested, Millar- a player beloved for his “Cowboy Up” spark of the 2004 Red Sox World Series win- tweeted: “Gotheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeem!!!! #Boston #USA“
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Giants beat writer Hank Schulman, responding to the same event, re-tweeted and commented on a tweet by Mo Rocca: “I haven’t been a fan of jokes about this situation, but this is good, RT @MoRocca: Let the uncle have at him first.” That uncle was pretty bad ass. His passionate press conference this morning did more to soothe anger and potentially misguided racial/cultural reprisals than any one else could have probably done.
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Of course, per usual, the elation, unity and joy of the end of the ordeal brought out the best in people, only to give way to the often misguided proselytizing. Amazing how many people that claim to love America and the second amendment have no respect for due process. Anyway, I’ll leave it there. The bottom line is that a bad week for the U.S. is in the books. We’ve got spring and baseball, and hopefully we don’t have to deal with too much other awful bullshit like this for a long, long, long time.
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Back to baseball….
The Twins/White Sox game was canceled due to weather in Chicago. The Twins have played only twice this week, having the rest of their games canceled. Twins closer Glen Perkins tweeted something funny: “I’m gonna call in to @1500ESPN with Mackey and Presso in 20 minutes. Not much to talk about since we don’t play baseball anymore.” … Dick Bremer, play by play man for the Twins, tweeted that he’s starting to feel like an NFL announcer, meaning only calling one game per week.
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The marquee match-up between the Nationals Stephen Strasburg and the NY Mets young phenom Matt Harvey went decidedly the Mets young pitchers way. Strasburg was fine, giving up 3 runs over six innings with 6 K’s, but Harvey is the real deal. He went 7, giving up one run and striking out 7. He is now 4-0 with an ERA of 0.93. Doc Gooden made it to the game because he’s been so intrigued by the best rookie pitcher since he was the phenom back in 1984. Dwight was four years younger when he started, but setting that aside, through his first 13 starts, Gooden had 107 Ks. Through 13 for Harvey? 102. Only one in between them, Nolan Ryan, with 103… Mets fans started a chant during the Strasburg-Harvey duel: “Harvey’s better”.
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The Braves lost just their third game of the season today. In all three losses, they have been shutout. It was pretty decisive this time though, the Pirates beat them 6-0.
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The Tigers managed just one run against the Angels tonight, after scoring just two runs in their last two games against the Mariners. The Angels starting pitcher? Tommy Hanson. And he pitched six scoreless innings. The Tigers have gone stone cold. Torii Hunter got 2 more hits though- he’s been on fire- scoring the lone run of the game in the 9th. It is nice to hit in front of Cabrera. I’m not a Tigers fan, but I’d have no problem with them winning the World Series this year just to see Hunter get a ring. I’m a long time Twins fan, and I love Torii Hunter.
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A couple of unique plays today. First, Brewers SS Jean Segura managed to “steal first”. Okay, not really, but here is what happened…. it is too hard to explain… just watch… And in San Francisco, in the bottom of the sixth, the Padres almost pulled off a triple play using the Wheel play— another one too hard to describe, so watch it here. In that game, Bumgarner struck out ten in a no-decision, with the Giants winning in walk off fashion courtesy of Angel Pagan knocking in Andres Torres. Good times.
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The Baseball Messiah League 