Jump on the Banny-wagon

I've mentioned Brian Bannister on this blog before. This probably won't be the last time I'll mention him either. I'm not the only one impressed with his Maddux-like, cerebral approach to pitching. Rany Jazayerli wrote a great piece today about how the Royals have, well, tanked in the past week and a half. However, he also commented about how solid Bannister continues to look on the mound. And I agree. He wasn't as good as Cliff Lee was last night, then again, no one has ever been as good as Lee has been in three consecutive starts. But, through six innings of work he had allowed one baserunner, which came in the form of a scratch-hit, which probably should have been an error.

I left a comment on Rany's post and introduced the term "Banny-wagon." It's got a nice ring to it, don't you think?

I'm telling you, this kid is good, and I think he's going to be consistently good. Far too many pitchers rely on their arms more than their brains. It's so refreshing to see a guy who knows how to pitch. If the Royals can ever put together some good offensive outings for him, he'll have at least 15 wins this season. If he does, the whole city might want on the Banny-wagon.

Poor Execution

Did you see that the "cursed" David Ortiz jersey sold on eBay for $175,000? If you haven't heard about this story, here's the short version: The Yankees are building a new stadium, and one of the construction workers, who happened to be a Red Sox fan, buried an Ortiz jersey in one of the service corridors of the new park, hoping to curse the arch rivals.

Seems a little silly to me.The proceeds from the week long auction go to the Jimmy Fund organization to help fight cancer. It's a worthy cause if there ever was one, but I really can't believe it sold for that much money. First of all, it didn't really do anything. The Curse of the Bambino lasted for 86 years. Now that was a curse. This was just a poorly executed attempt. The Yankees didn't even play a single game in that new stadium. What's more, Ortiz started off the season ice cold, and has only now begun to produce. Maybe the curse backfired.

I have a theory about baseball curses: The most successful curses (or devastating, depending on your vantage point) are self-imposed. Take, for example, the two most famous baseball curses, the previously mentioned Curse of the Bambino, and the Curse of the Billy Goat, which has "prevented" the Chicago Cubs from winning the World Series since 1908. The Bambino Curse began when the Red Sox owner sold George Herman Ruth, Jr., The Babe, to the New York Yankees and allegedly used the proceeds from the sale to finance his production of a Broadway musical, commonly believed to be No, No, Nanette.

The Curse of the Billy Goat goes back to Game 4 of the 1945 World Series when the Detroit Tigers came to Wrigley Field to take on the Cubbies. A local tavern owner had two box seat tickets for the event. According to Wikipedia, he took his pet goat, draped in a blanket that read, "We Got Detroit's Goat." They let both ticket holders into the game, and allowed them to take their seats. But, when it started to rain, the man and his goat were thrown out due to the foul wet goat smell. The man was so mad, he cursed the Cubs, and the rest is baseball history.

Had the Yankees gone years without going to the World Series after moving to their new stadium, followed by rumors of a David Ortiz jersey buried on the premises, a frantic search to locate the textile, and a dramatic unearthing of the cursed object, then maybe you could justify a six-figure sale of a tattered, torn, dirty jersey.

God bless capitalism and the free market.

The Perfect Game Redesigned

There are still some pictures that need to be re-done, but other than that, I think I'm done with this redesign. Obviously the color scheme is different, and hopefully it will be a little easier to read now. I thought about recreating the banner logo, but I've seen it now for so long, that it's kind of become the blog's trademark. It's here to stay. I went to great lengths to hack the HTML codes to provide png functionality for all of you people still using IE 6. If you don't know what that means, I salute you -- you're not a geek. But if you're not already using Firefox, shame on you. Anyway, I am really happy with the results. There may still be a few minor tweaks here and there, but this is TPG (The Perfect Game) 2008.

One thing I changed was the list of links to other blogs. You'll notice that Home Run Derby is gone, because they're mostly garbage geared towards the basest of baseball fans. The Yellow Flag is also gone because, well, it never really got off the ground (maybe next year?). In their places are two superb baseball blogs, specifically focusing on the Royals, but are great reads nonetheless. Ball Star is the Royals blog for the Kansas City Star, the big newspaper in town, and Rany on the Royals provides excellent statistical insight along with great writing. And, unlike many other blogs, the comments are usually good too.

Hopefully TPG will live up to its design. It'd be a shame to have a blog that looks this cool that never has any new content. So far so good for this season, although my production seems somehow tied to the Royals production. Neither has been great the past two weeks.

This blog started out as a way to explain some of the finer points about the Game to casual fans. So, if you have a question you'd like to be addressed in a future post, leave a comment and let me know. I'm always open to suggestions. Oh, and I'm working on the post about how the Yankees are the greatest sports franchise of all time...

Really...

I am...

Under Construction

I'm trying to roll out a new design, so if you see something that looks weird it's probably temporary.

Powder Blues

My wife and I attended our first Royals game of the 2008 season on Saturday, April 12. The Royals played the Minnesota Twins that night. Our team was off to a great start, having swept the Mighty Tigers and taken two of three from the Formidable Yankees. But, I have to admit, the real reason we had tickets for this particular game, and that we'd had them since day one of single game ticket sales, was because of the promotional give away: Powder Blue Billy Butler Replica jerseys, #16, which was my number in high school and college. The first 20,000 fans would receive these jerseys in commemoration of the unveiling of the new powder blues the Royals would be wearing that night.

I tend to obsess about baseball, and attending a game is no exception. It is not uncommon for us to spend over six hours at the ballpark on game day. I love to get to the park early enough to see the visiting team take batting practice, and I love to linger after the game. Had the weather cooperated that day, we probably would have arrived at Kauffman Stadium at about 3:30, two-and-a-half hours prior to the first pitch. As it turns out, the weather would not be the last thing to disappoint us.

It was like the dead of winter. Okay. Not quite, but it was really cold. But we were prepared, wore countless layers, and planned on adding an additional Powder Blue layer at the game. We figured the weather would keep other folks from going early too, but we were wrong. We didn't go to the game until about 4:45pm. We only live 10 minutes from the stadium so we arrived at the park about an hour before game time. When we handed over our tickets at the gate, there must have been 30,000 people there, and the coveted Powder Blue replica jerseys were being worn by two-thirds of them. When we didn't get our jerseys we were really disappointed.

After pushing through the crowds and finding our cheap seats, our eyes beheld the one bright spot of the evening: Crown Vision -- approximately 8,925 square feet of high definition LCD goodness. It's almost 105 feet tall and 85 feet wide, and it is amazing. For the time being, it is the largest HD LCD video display in the world. Did I mention it was amazing?

Still in awe of the biggest, sweetest TV I'd ever seen, we soon realized that we were sitting in front of a group of rowdy college-age kids who had obviously been there for a few hours and had been drinking all the while. We were disappointed and annoyed, but not surprised. We always seem to sit by annoying people.

The next disappointment came when we realized that our favorite player, John Buck, was not in the lineup that night. When we saw that his backup, Miguel Olivo, would be handling the duties behind the plate, I realized that the way our night was going, there was no way the Royals were going to win.

After about five innings the rowdies behind us won and we relocated to some empty seats on the lower level. On our way down we stopped at the Flipside Grill, home of our all-time favorite ballpark treat, Chili-Cheese Tots, where we learned that Tots in any form were no longer on the menu. So, we settled for the Chili-Cheese Fries, but they were those soggy crinkle fries (a curse upon you, your children, and your children's children, Mr. Inventor of the crinkle fry). What's more, the chili was different and didn't look nearly as appetizing. This would also be a great place to mention that we waited 15 minutes at the cash register before anyone helped us, but you don't need to hear about too many disappointments. I think the employee taking orders from our line was due for a break, so she left, and no one stepped in, but like I said, you don't need to hear about that.

We finally sat down to eat our Chili-Cheese Fries, now surrounded by plenty of quiet, empty seats, where we no longer needed to endure the moronic criticism of the game offered by our previous neighbors. The Royals were, of course, losing. They only had two hits thus far in the game, and we missed both of them while waiting in line. I looked at my wife, and before I realized what I was asking for, said, "Well, at least it's not raining."

I looked up as the ninth inning began and it began to snow...

Despite the loss and all the other disappointments, we actually had a good time at the ballpark, which is probably just further testament of the sweetness of Crown Vision.

As I pulled into our driveway my phone rang. It was a friend calling to tell us that he had grabbed a pair of the Powder Blue promotional jerseys for us. Garth Brooks and the rowdy college drunks can have their friends in low places. I'll keep my friends in high ones, thank you very much.