Baseball’s Lawrence Peter “Yogi” Berra – slugger (lifetime .285, 358 home runs, 1,430 RBIs), catcher, coach and manager, man of words and soft drink salesman – died Tuesday at the age of 90. He had played in more World Series games than anyone else, earned three Most Valuable Player awards, and played to 10 World Series wins.
Archive for the ‘MLB’ Category
Yogi, 1925 — 2015
September 25, 2015Hot Dogs
April 7, 2014
“If the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council is right, Americans will eat enough hot dogs at Major League Baseball stadiums this season to stretch from Nationals Park to the Arizona Diamondbacks’ Chase Field in Phoenix.
Nearly 21.4 million hot dogs will be eaten, the trade group says. And we’ll eat another 5.5 million sausages.”
— “Hail to the ballpark hot dog: We’ll eat 21M this year,” Jeff Clabaugh, Washington Business Journal
More:
“Hot Dogs Remain Top Dog For Major League Baseball Fans,” National Hot Dog and Sausage Council (press release) (Infographic)
“Hot dogs and beer: See what $20 buys at the ballpark,” CNN
The death of the hot dog & the weirdness of new ballpark food,” Stephen Mast, Fox Sports
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Boston’s Turn to Howl!
October 31, 2013
Boston won Game 6 on Wednesday and clinched the 2013 World Series at Fenway Park . The last time the Red Sox won the title at home was in 1918, when the Military Fly-Over was a flock of Army homing pigeons.
More:
“Red Sox cap season with World Series title,” Peter Abraham, Boston Globe
“2013 World Series: Red Sox take third title in 10 seasons,” Barry Svrluga, Washington Post
“An unforgettable season of redemption,” Matt Pepin, Boston.com
“Red Sox Rout Cardinals to Win Series,” David Waldstein, New York Times
“Red Sox Players To Shave Beards,” Courtney Subramanian, Time Magazine blog
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Boston vs. St. Louis: Bring the Noise!
October 24, 2013Brass sections of the St. Louis Symphony and Boston Symphony Orchestra face off.
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Ramos Rescued
November 12, 2011
Kidnapped Washington Nationals catcher Wilson Ramos has been rescued from his abductors in Venezuela. There is no truth to the rumor that he was traded for two players to be named later.
Mr. Ramos was staying with his family in Valencia, the third largest city in Venezuela, capital of Carabobo state, and his hometown. He has been spending the Major League Baseball off-season playing for the Aragua Tigers in the Venezuelan Baseball League. Ethnocentric Norteamericanos insist on calling this “winter baseball” even though it will soon be summer in the Southern Hemisphere.
More:
“Wilson Ramos rescatado con un final feliz (Wilson Ramos rescued with a happy ending),” Prensa Tigres de Aragua
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Lefty Opens Baseball Season
April 5, 2010
President Barack Obama threw out the first pitch of the season at Nationals Park on Monday. High and outside.
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Wrong End of the Telescope
April 14, 2009
Everyone loves to root for the home team, but while the sentiment is charming, it also makes bookies rich. Why should government make the same kind of dumb bet, but at higher stakes? That’s exactly what happens when the dynamics of real estate speculation are magnified by taxpayer-funded sports stadium projects.
Objective assessment of athletes is difficult; inflating the merits of a sports team with hometown loyalty and wishful thinking is a sucker’s game. Likewise, a publicly-funded sports facility is a sucker bet for citizens and a speculator’s dream.
Yesterday’s local news featured pathetic interviews with DC baseball fans. Folks in Nationals ballcaps, standing near lots laid waste by stadium-fueled development delusions, said it had taken a decade for the downtown arena neighborhood to develop, so they were willing to endure ten years of unproductive desolation caused by Nats Park construction. With all this “Wait Until Next Decade” talk it was hard to remember that Monday was Opening Day, not the end of a losing season.
Nationals Owner Hits Grand Slam
April 7, 2009
Last season, Forbes magazine listed Washington Nationals owner Theodore Lerner at number 462 on their annual Billionaires’ List, with a personal wealth of $2.5 billion. The 2009 Forbes list is shorter, of course; we’re in a worldwide financial meltdown and the number of billionaires is a mere 793, down from last year’s 1,125.
Mr. Lerner, though, has bucked the trend: this year he’s #191, with assets of $3.2 billion. In 2007 Ted Lerner was in true Nationals form, at the bottom of the Bigs (#664, $1.5 billion). Let’s hear it for the home team!
Tomorrow, to celebrate Mr. Lerner’s coup, the cash-strapped DC Government will present him with $700,000-worth of sculpture it bought for him, decorations for the $611 million stadium taxpayers built for the Lerner family last year. We have not learned if the Lerners are actually paying the stadium rent this year.
Admire the sculptures your tax dollars bought for the Lerners 11:00 AM on Wednesday, April 8th, when the artwork will be dedicated at Nationals Park. RSVP to Deirdre Ehlen at the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities (DCCAH) by email or phone (202-724-5613). The event is free. See the art you paid for before you have to buy Nationals tickets to do it.
Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com
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DC Buys Bronze Bobbleheads for Billionaires
March 26, 2009
As part of its economic recovery effort, the DC Government commissioned $700,000 worth of sculpture for billionaire Theodore Lerner and his family. DC already built $611 million Nationals Park for the Lerners, who own the local Major League Baseball franchise, and the government wants to decorate it to suit the wealthy tenants. Who knows, this might even encourage the Lerners to actually pay rent on the stadium.
You can admire the artistic gifts your tax dollars bought for the Lerners at 11:00 AM on Wednesday, April 8th, when the sculptures will be dedicated. RSVP to Deirdre Ehlen at the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities (DCCAH) by email or phone (202-724-5613). The event is free, so go see the art you paid for before you have to buy Nationals tickets to do it.
Forbes estimates the personal wealth of Theodore N. Lerner at $2.5 billion, but why spend your own money on art when the taxpayers will commission it for you? The DC Government dead- panned that the baseball art belongs to DC and is only on loan to the Lerners, an assertion worthy of a Larry Neal Award for fiction. The sculpture is site-specific, so saying the art is on loan is like saying you don’t own the fillings in your teeth, you only rent them.
MLB + FBI = DC ‘Civic Pride?’
March 2, 2009
Jim Bowden has resigned as General Manager of the Washington Nationals, but not over the dismal record of the purportedly professional team he allegedly managed for four years. The FBI suspects Bowden and José Rijo, his Special Assistant, of skimming bonus money from Latino rookies, according to league sources quoted by ESPN and AP. The financial irregularities may have started fourteen years ago, when Bowden and Rijo recruited highly-paid young Dominican players for the Cincinnati Reds.
The media first became aware of the FBI investigation back in July, while the Nationals were struggling to maintain their historic four-year record as the absolutely worst team in Major League Baseball. Public interest in the corruption investigation revived recently when swindlers cheated the alleged crooks by switching an unknown for a celebrated young player in a multi-million-dollar contract deal.
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