July 2009
Losing Streaks
I’m sure all of you know what I’m talking about when I say losing streaks- but how many of you have experienced the amount of losing streaks the Royals have this season for as long as the Royals make them last? (keep your hands down, Nationals fans) It’s easy to jump on the bandwagon when your team’s winning. The losing streak is the place where you discover which fans are loyal to your team and which ones aren’t. There’s a very simple way to discover which ones are and which ones aren’t:
These are the ones that aren’t:
picture: arrowheadaddict.com via google
The sad thing is, I searched for that picture on Google, and this one was one of the first to come up. Judging from the site it came from, it’s a picture from another Kansas City team… the one that has an even worse winning percentage than the Royals.
I am proud to announce that I am not wearing a paper bag over my head as I type this, but I am getting very annoyed at the Royals’ losing ways. Here’s a typical day in the Kansas City area:
- Wake Up
- Do your morning routine until you get to reading the newspaper
- Read the newspaper
- Look at the sports section, realize that the Royals lost again, say something along the lines of “oh, well, that’s life” or “oh, well, that’s just our magical imploding bullpen” and turn to the second to last page to see if anyone bowled a 300 game at the local lanes.
Yesterday, the Royals bullpen did its magic act again, imploding in the seventh and giving up seven runs over the final three innings. The Royals are getting to be so bad that they didn’t even announce it on ESPN Radio Sportscenter. We did win the day before, but the odds state that you’re going to have to win a game sometime, unless you live in Detroit and like football.
Thanks to the ten game losing streak we had before that win, we are now living in the basement, 14 games back of Detroit for the division lead. Maybe I shouldn’t have insulted Detroit in the last paragraph… … … no, I think I’ll leave it the way it is.
The last win we had before Saturday was on July 9 against the Boston Red Sox. In that time, there was an all-star game, the Yankees and Angels and probably a bunch of other teams tied together some nice winning streaks, Mark Buehrle pitched a perfect game, Jonathon Sanchez pitched a no-hitter- that’s two no-hitters between our last two wins- and that’s just in baseball. I don’t think there’s any need to go on.
Finally today’s oddness: In yesterday’s NASCAR race Juan Pablo Montoya lost the race after he got punished for speeding. Speeding! What is this world coming to? Somebody got penalized in a race for speeding. That’s unbelievable to me.
The Odd Blog First Half In Review
Well, it’s been an exciting first half, hasn’t it? There’s been many surprises, some of them good, some of them bad, and… some of them weren’t really surprises at all, though I don’t know what I mean by that. I just needed something to fill up that empty space there.
First off, the news! The season started with the startling news that A-Rod used steroids, prompting many people to rename him A-Roid. A few months later, Manny Ramirez was discovered to have used a PED, prompting me to rename him Banny Ramirez. Ramirez just passed Mickey Mantle on the all time home run list, and I think that’s a shame, because as far as I know, Mickey Mantle never used a banned substance.
On a lighter note, there have been quite a few players who are doing good things this season, and hopefully without PEDs. Roy Halladay, Zack Greinke, and Dan Haren are all doing great this season, and there are a lot of other pitchers also doing OK who I will chose not to name for no specific reason. Raul Ibanez finally broke out this year with the Phillies… and then there’s that guy in St. Louis… what’s his name… um, Albert Pujols! If you don’t know what he’s doing, you need to go to MLB.com or the Cardinals website and look it up! He’s having a career year without using a banned substance! See, A-Roid, Banny? It can be done!
At the beginning of the year, I made my picks for each division. Let’s see how they’re playing out now:
AL NL
I hope you can read that. If not, it’s time to get your eyes checked.
Well, this means that I am one of the world’s foremost authorities on the AL East, and I know nothing about the division I’m supposed to know about.
Now back to present day baseball. The Royals are playing a doubleheader today! I love it! It gives us a better chance to win at least one game in a day! Of course, playing the Angels, it’ll probably 12-2, 10-3 or something like that- in LA’s favor.
I went to a Northern League baseball game Sunday; they’re in independent league in which the Kansas City team is actually good! (What a shock!) It was a great 10-inning game, complete with suicide squeeze play in the bottom of the ninth. The players hit a lot of baseballs out of the stadium, so it’s pretty easy to find one if you know where to look. I’m 2-for-2 this year!
And finally, Tom Watson, (a native Kansas Citian I might add) did an amazing job at
the British Open, taking second. I would say congratulations, but the
odds of him reading this blog are very slim.
I’m Seeing Stars
All-stars, that is. It was a great game last night with Zack Greinke getting the job done in the fourth, even though he should have started in my opinion. Either way, I’m happy because the AL won. My dad is an NL backer, mostly because of the DH rule, but they haven’t won for 13 years now, so maybe he’ll change his mind in ten or twenty years.
There was another event that took place before the all-star game, and a lot of people were very disappointed with it. The home run derby has apparently lost some of its flair in the last few years. So you’re probably not surprised that I have a few suggestions on how to make it better.
The NHL has an all-star skills challenge before the all star game every year, so why can’t the MLB have something like that? There could be a best wind-up or batting stance competition just like there’s a most creative shootout attempt in the NHL. Hockey has a target test, so why can’t baseball have one? The pitchers could try to hit four targets set up on the corners of the plate, or the batters could try to hit targets set up around the field. Instead of a home run derby, try to see who can hit the ball the farthest. Bonus points for landing it in a stadium’s special feature, like the fountains at the K. What about a competition where everybody gets one strike to put the ball in play, and if they don’t they get eliminated? Or we could see whose got the best arm by having players try to throw the ball from right field to home to try get a runner going from third. There is a multitude of possibilities.
Finally, the NHL has announced (in their worst-kept secret, according to the commish) that Fenway will host the Winter Classic. While it won’t match the one in Buffalo (who plays the only other game that day), we can still hope for a blizzard with wind gusts of over 70 mph!
The Odd Blog Week In Review
I’m back from my family reunion and ready to take on more of the oddities of baseball. First of all, I had a great time with all the people I don’t know, and I learned a few things: Royals fans are better than Tigers fans at “Quiddler”, but just barely, and that you should never play “Trivial Pursuit” against someone who’s memorized the entire game. If you get forced to, you should resort to pronouncing everything wrong (Germany = grr-mane-ee) etc.
Now to baseball, where the Royals beat the Red Sox last night! (Yeah, you knew I’d have to write about this). This is the first time since Game 7 of the Stanley Cup that I’ve really gotten “into” a sporting event. I was listening to the broadcast on the radio and when David DeJesus hit the two run homer to take the lead, I was practically shouting down the stairs that we got a homer to the rest of the family, which I don’t think really cared. This may seem like weird activity to you- but I am a Royals fan who writes a blog entitled The Odd Blog. Another thing: people were commenting on articles about the Royals about how people in Boston were already getting their brooms out, how we were a pushover and that they were already looking ahead to the next series. Not anymore! I’m feeling like those brooms are going to turn on the BoSox! Yes, it will be a four-game sweep for the Royals! I can just feel it!
Anyway, other stuff happened while I was away.
Banny Ramirez came back from his suspension… … … but I don’t really care.
Joel Hanrahan got a win for the Nats… without even being at the stadium. That was odd, so I have to write something about it. If you want to read the whole story, it’s right… here. The irony is that the guy who scored the winning run wasn’t on the Nationals when the game started. He was in Pittsburgh, but got traded for Hanrahan. It was also the first time since 1975 that a team got a walk-off in an opposing stadium.
And finally… Joe Sakic retired. He was a 17-time captain for the Colorado Avalanche and was 8th all time in scoring. He was also a 12-time all star. Joe Sakic, you will be missed!
You Too Can Vote 25 Times For The Royals!
I did my duty this morning, voting 25 times for the Royals. I don’t think it helped, as there are probably no Royals in the top…. anything in their respective positions. So now you can feel secure in knowing your favorite players are doing o.k. in the polls, and the Royals need your help! So vote the 24 times you have left for the Royals, because I’ve done my part.
Now to baseball that counts, because home-field advantage in the World Series doesn’t really matter to a fourth place team.
The Royals play the White Sox this weekend, a four game series. You all know that I hate four game series, but I won’t be doing too much about it because I’ve got company coming tomorrow (thanks to all of you- one of you- that gave me advice). After that, I get to go to a family reunion which will have even more under-10 year olds. But it will be lots of fun, even though I’ll be away from the blog for about a week.
After that detour, I will now review the last few Royals games:
In our last outing, pitching was great, but… everything else was a vacuum, if you know what I mean. Thus, we lost. Again. We’ve been doing a lot of that lately, but being a Royals fan, you get used to it. *sigh.* The lone bright spots this past week has been Billy Butler, who is doing great at the plate (4-for-4 yesterday in the losing effort) and Zack Greinke, who is… back to normal. Of course, on this team, “normal” is “excellent.” Butler and Greinke are the full, five course Thanksgiving dinner, and the rest of the Royals are the lime jello salad. Not that there’s anything wrong with jello salad, but I’m hungry right now, so I decided to slip that analogy in there.
I sense a dinner bell coming up, so that’s all for now. More to come next week!
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