Thoughts from the Dugout – Page 3

Thoughts from the Dugout: Let’s Play Two

January 26, 2015 by Travis J. Cook Leave a Comment

Image courtesy Getty Images

Ernie Banks passed away on Friday, January 23rd, 2015, eight days before his 84th birthday. He was a Chicago icon, a Hall of Fame shortstop who won two MVP awards while playing his entire career for the Chicago Cubs. He never made it to the postseason, but was widely regarded as “Mr. Cub”, a beloved figure in spite of his team’s mediocrity – or because of it. He was the first player in the modern era to be identified as an offensive force while playing shortstop, a position not known at the time for prolific offense.

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Thoughts from the Dugout: AwardsWatch 2014

November 7, 2014 by Travis J. Cook Leave a Comment

Well, that was a fun 2014 baseball season. Time to move on to the next phase of baseball magic: the offseason.

During baseball’s offseason, many interesting things happen. Unusual contracts are signed, granting mediocre players obscene amounts of money that cripple your franchise’s pitching staff for years (sorry, I’m still bitter about Homer Bailey). Odd choices are awarded for fielding awards, using subjective rather than objective criteria (fortunately, nobody awarded anything to Brandon Philips this year). And random-ass Hall of Fame elections happen, resulting in as much head-scratching as they do in triumphant celebration (seriously, who the fuck voted for Jacque Jones??).

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Thoughts from the Dugout: Dynastic Performance

October 30, 2014 by Travis J. Cook Leave a Comment

Brian Sabean said something in the postgame reception – “This team is our Camelot.” These players – there aren’t many left from the heyday of 2010, and only not much more from the utter dominance of 2012, but the core is still present: Pablo Sandoval, the third baseman who seemingly can’t make an out in October and who now holds the record for the most hits in the postseason; Buster Posey, the embattled catcher who nonetheless now has three rings to his credit as the backstop and leader of his team; Jeremy Affeldt, who now has a ring for each one of his kids, who pitched one of his longest outings of the season tonight, and who gave an interview for the ages (seriously, if you didn’t see it, go watch); Tim Lincecum, the one-time ace relegated to bullpen mop-up duties, but who accepts his role, if grudgingly, then willingly.

And Madison Bumgarner stands above them all.

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Thoughts from the Dugout: Utterly Unexpected

October 28, 2014 by Travis J. Cook Leave a Comment

The World Series continues, and we’ve seen a multitude of different games. We’ve seen blowouts, we’ve seen pitching masterpieces. We’ve seen close games decided by bullpens, and games decided by defensive lapses. As of this writing, the Giants have taken a 3 to 2 Series lead, with the series returning to Kansas City. This gives the Royals a chance to first pull even and then to contend for the title in a Game Seven which nobody predicted. Conversely, it gives the Giants a chance to win their third Series in five years, on the road no less, cementing one of the weirdest dynasties of our age.

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Thoughts from the Dugout: World Series Preview

October 21, 2014 by Travis J. Cook Leave a Comment

It starts tonight. The World Series is afoot. By now, you’ve all heard about the magical #Yostseason of the Royals, and about the perils of facing the Giants with their #EvenYear sorcery. (Yes, Twitter has compartmentalized the sum of all postseasons for us, now TWEET IT.) So, what should we expect?

In summary, many things. In a more drawn out fashion… [Read more…]

Thoughts from the Dugout: We Could Be Royals

October 16, 2014 by Travis J. Cook Leave a Comment

All images via.

Holy shit. The Kansas City Royals have made it to the World Series. Holy shit.

No, really. Holy shit.

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Thoughts from the Dugout: Rockin’ the Postseason

October 14, 2014 by Travis J. Cook 1 Comment

Royals-Orioles was rained out last night. So here’s a filler column!

We’re three and two games into the respective League Championship Series, and already, it’s as if everything we expected (NLCS) and didn’t expect (ALCS) is happening. However, there are multiple things which I’m interested in writing about this year, so we’re expanding to another field I love – music. Specifically, rock music. Even more specifically, a completely arbitrary way to honor past acts with a designation which may or may not actually mean anything in the long run.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ballot was released last week, and it’s an interesting pool of candidates, bringing together a diverse and completely unrelated group of acts that may or may not actually have to do with rock itself. In order to fully analyze the ballot, I felt that the best way to do it was to look at their blurb on Wikipedia, listen to a song on YouTube, and then compare them with a player/manager from the four teams remaining in the postseason to which they (somewhat) relate. This is why I get my own column – sheer genius and ultra-spontaneous collaborations. Behold, my breakdown of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 2015 ballot!

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Thoughts from the Dugout: League of Champions

October 10, 2014 by Travis J. Cook Leave a Comment

Baseball is a game of inches. It’s also a game of luck. It’s also a game where your weaknesses can – and will – be magnified by those inclined to exploit them.

Let’s examine the key moment of Game Three of the NLDS between the Dodgers and Cards. You had the Dodgers with a 2-0 lead in the top of the 7th. You had Clayton Kershaw, widely accepted as the best pitcher on the planet, coming off of six innings of one run, two walk ball and 94 pitches on three days of rest. He led off the inning by giving up two singles, but didn’t appear to be struggling too badly.

Then Matt Adams came to the plate.

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Thoughts from the Dugout: Coach Speak

October 7, 2014 by Travis J. Cook Leave a Comment

Press conferences featuring coaches and managers rarely offer much insight – in the corporate controlled world of professional sports, the suits at the top frown on those who offer much more than the company line or a string of well-rehearsed cliches to ravenous sports writers eager for something to exploit. Fortunately, we here at the Addison Recorder have invented a device that translates these dull affairs – “coach speak”, if you will – into a more accurate reflection of the mental state of the skipper. This is all part of our efforts to offer you better insight into what exactly the manager or coach is trying to say.

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Thoughts from the Dugout: Death by Short Division (Series)

October 2, 2014 by Travis J. Cook Leave a Comment

Well, that was fun. And alternately depressing

We are literally only two days into October, and already I’m 0 for 2. Someone recently described the Wild Card round as a coin-flip, which only serves to make me feel a little bit better about my record. Then I remember that, at the end of the day, I’m able to write about baseball every week, and that there’s only more where this came from. And that makes me feel a great deal better.

I’m slightly revamping how these columns are going to function going forward: I’m going to spend less time talking about what I think is going to happen and how certain strengths and weaknesses are going to play out. Predicting sports is about as accurate a science as meteorology. Instead, I’m going to focus on what I feel is my strength, which is reacting to what we’ve seen and trying to figure out exactly what it all means. Which works out well, because we’ve had a doozy of a Wild Card round this year.

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