MichaelLortz.com/JordiScrubbings.com

(UPDATE: I received an email from both RJ Anderson and Tommy Rancel. I had a very positive correspondence with both gentlemen. I want to thank them for taking the time to respond and I hope to meet both soon.)

I’ve written about DRaysBay before. For those that don’t know, they are the premier statistical analysis blog on the Tampa Bay Rays. Although I love their analysis and their work, I think they are the most condescending bunch of bloggers in the Tampa Bay blogosphere.

Back in December of 2008, I wrote about their inability to see baseball from the perspective of the common fan. I wrote that they had a “‘holier than thou’ attitude towards the casual fan”. I hoped maybe they would grow up and wake up to the fact that not every fan wants to be burdened with understanding advanced statistics. For some fans, if the team loses – no matter how great the players performed – it was a disappointing day at the ballpark.

I was highly encouraged and thought they were turning over a new leaf when I read this post about a game one of the writers attended with his little daughter. The writer even said he “rediscovered” the game.

Alas, my optimism was short lived. Not two months later, the DRaysBay writers retreated to their Ivory Tower, where “average” fans are not acknowledged.

(I know I am lumping them all together. FreeZorilla wrote the piece on the game with his daughter. The site has four or five other writers.)

My ire was once again provoked earlier this week, by this exclusionary comment by friend of the site, Jonah Keri. While writing about much maligned Rays outfielder BJ Upton, Keri told DRaysBay readers:

The big “news” tomorrow on mainstream sites will be about B.J. Upton being lazy or combative or a bad teammate or whatever other euphemism writers want to use. Don’t listen to any of it.

Doesn’t that sound condescending? Like Keri is some preacher telling his followers not to acknowledge the mindless ramblings of other sites. Keri and his truth will lead the way.

Then, only a few days later, R.J. Anderson commented about another post on the SBNation site written by fellow Tampa Bay blogger Clark Brooks.

I don’t really know who Clark Brooks is, but he says here he’s done defending B.J. Upton. I’m not. It’s easier to defend people when their performance is measured in every imaginable way and it’s not about page hits or links.

Well, RJ, I have met Clark. He seemed like a pretty normal guy. He is also quite funny, if you have ever read his work. Unfortunately, it’s easy to not know your fellow writers when you don’t show up to networking events

Do you know where I met Clark?

At a recent SBNation meet-up, where writers of the Tampa Bay sports sites were at the Tampa Bay Brewing Company to meet with each other and some of their readers. According to the post on the meet-up, writers from the Bucs site were there as well as writers from the Lightning site.

Where were the DRaysBay guys? Not there. Not one. I know some of them don’t live in the Tampa Bay area, and that’s understandable. But am I to believe one of the most popular Rays sites on the web has zero writers living in the Tampa Bay area? They even posted an invite on their site, although they failed to say they would be represented.

That’s poor. Or as the kids say, that’s a “FAIL”.

Maybe they have a collective problem with meeting the people who enjoy their work. Are they scared their readers will be obsessive groupies like the bloggers mentioned in this article about a recent sports blog convention?

As anyone who has met me before can attest, I am far from a writer groupie. If I like your work, I’ll tell you. If you like mine, I hope you’ll tell me as well. Maybe we can even take in a beer or two and talk shop. As most people who work in social media will attest, person-to-person relationships mean much more than any blog post or twitter conversation.

Therefore, in conclusion, Erik Hahmann, Tommy Rancel, RJ Anderson, and the rest of the DRaysBay crew, I am calling you out. I dare you to get out of your ivory tower, back away from the spreadsheets, and join me for a beer at the Trop sometime.

If you keep up on your news and current events, you probably heard of at least one major employee snafu last week. As a devourer of news and notes, there were two that particularly caught my attention. Although the cases were similar, I was particularly interested in how the leadership of two completely different organizations reacted.

On June 19, Pittsburgh Pirates employee Andrew Kurtz was fired after his management read disparaging remarks he wrote about the organization on his Facebook page. Even though Kurtz claimed it was “just an opinion”, management made him turn in his field entertainment (aka his Pierogi racing) uniform and seek employment elsewhere.

A few days later, on June 22, Rolling Stone Magazine posted a lengthy article about General Stanley McChrystal, head of operations in Afghanistan. In the article, McChrystal and his staff had some not-so-nice things to say about the President of the United States and his staff. The next day, McChrystal was fired and reports are that members of his staff may also be given their walking papers.

Proves that you shouldn’t talk about the boss in earshot, right?

Not so fast.

The same day McChrystal was fired, Andrew Kurtz was re-hired by the Pittsburgh Pirates and reinstated as a pierogi racer. According to ESPN.com, officials with the Pirates claimed Kurtz “shouldn’t have been terminated in the first place”.

In linking the two incidents, Chicago Tribune reporter Rob Manker asked “Why is the top U.S. general in Afghanistan more replaceable than a running pierogi?”

I think Manker missed the point completely. The point is not that Kurtz was more valuable than McChrystal or that McChrystal was more valuable than Kurtz. The point is that the Pittsburgh Pirates organization set a poor example in allowing a low ranking employee to get away with bad mouthing leadership. Politics aside, President Obama put a line in the sand by cutting ties with McChrystal. Agree or disagree, the President made it clear: disorderly conduct and embarrassing leadership will not be tolerated, especially by those in public positions. That line does not exist for public representatives of the Pittsburgh Pirates.

The Pirates would have been better off ignoring Kurtz’s comments in the first place and letting him go about his job. Instead, they opened up the door to criticism by any employee, completely undermining the leadership structure.  Now any one employed by the Pirates can say what they want about the Pirates senior leadership and not fear the repercussions. If questioned and threatened with a possible firing, they only have to point to Kurtz and his continued employment.

That’s bad leadership. Not that every employee has to agree, but a successful business can not have crusaders undermining their efforts. Everyone should at least notionally be on the same page.

No wonder the Pirates haven’t had a winning season since 1992.

By the way, pierogis are freakin’ awesome. Especially the cheese and potato kinds. Just writing this post made me hungry.

I wanted to follow up yesterday’s post on the Edwin Jackson no-hitter with some of my own personal thoughts:

- In the last year, I have seen a walk-off home run, a cycle, and a no-hitter. Granted, I go to approximately 20 Rays games and a handful of minor league games a year, but I still think that’s impressive.

- Friday night was the first time I wore the afro to Tropicana Field. That won’t happen again.

- Friday night I also brought a vuvuzela, one of the four I ordered from soccer.com (cheap plug!). Even though Joe Madden of the Rays said they are a bad gimmick, I brought one anyway. That won’t happen again.

- Another note about the vuvuzela: if you watch the last highlight, you can hear a faint buzzing in the background. I had one of approximately 10 horns in the crowd. Yes, they get that loud. I can’t imagine being in a stadium full of horns. Especially a dome.

- According to answers.com, the odds of seeing a no-hitter is approximately 1505 to 1. That’s a little bit less than half the chance of successfully navigating an asteroid field (3720 to 1).

- During the game, I also had the pleasure of meeting two Rays fans I talk to on twitter: Ingrid (aka kero97) and Brandi (aka southernmojo). They were awesome. We talked about doing a Rays fan tweet-up soon.

- The Rays are 2-7 this year in games I have attended and have not won in my presence since April 9th, the first Friday of the season. After starting 2-0 that first week, they have lost 7 in a row. I was seriously considering not going to Friday’s game in an attempt to end this streak. My next tickets are for a game during a huge series against Boston next week. I’m not sure I can even consider putting my personal baseball enjoyment ahead of the success of the team. I may have to sit this one out.

There is an usher named Lou at Tropicana Field who I’ve become friends with over the last few years. Since I started going to Rays games regularly in late 2007, I’ve made it a habit to talk baseball with Lou prior to every game, whether I’m sitting in his section or not.

Hailing from the Bronx, Lou is one of the many New Yorkers who have moved to the Tampa Bay area and brought with them their love of baseball. As much of an old-time baseball fan as a fan of the modern game, Lou and I have talked about some of the greatest pitchers to ever play the game, from Bob Feller and Whitey Ford to Roy Halladay and Felix Hernandez. Since he started going to baseball games in 1944, there isn’t much Lou hasn’t seen in person.

Before Friday night, however, he had never witnessed a no-hitter.

Then Edwin Jackson happened.

I remember talking with Lou about Edwin Jackson in 2008. Back then, Jackson, the mercurial fireballer with a golden right arm, was the Rays fifth starter. He was also an enigma wrapped in a puzzle tucked in a quagmire and soaked in a dilemma. We all saw he had talent – the ability to throw 100 mph, an arm durable enough to go late into games, and pitches that made major league hitters look foolish. We just didn’t know why Jackson couldn’t put it all together consistently. Cork Gaines of Rays Index even compared him to “Nuke Laloosh”, Tim Robbins’ notoriously flaky character in Bull Durham.

On Friday night, Edwin Jackson put it all together.

After the game, the baseball blogosphere and Twitterverse spun like a whirling dervish over the fact that Jackson threw a whopping 149 pitches in no-hitting the Rays. In the era of pitch counts and 100-pitch limits, Jackson’s performance deferred from the mean in a drastic way. An article posted after the no-hitter on Baseball-Reference.com stated Jackson threw more pitches than other pitcher in a no-hit game. As the night progressed, analysts, prognosticators, sooth-seers, forecasters, and others all expressed their opinion.

According to baseball analyst Joe Sheehan’s twitter feed, “No-hitter aside, there’s no way it makes sense to protect a one-run lead in the ninth with a guy approaching 150 pitches.”

Fellow analyst Rany Jazayerli countered Sheehan’s statement with a tweet of his own, “If Jackson played for 29 of 30 teams, you’d have a point. In ARZ, a tired Jackson might still be better than anyone in the pen.” and “In a season where the previous high pitch count was 132, there’s no way to justify 149. But it’s still pretty cool.”

ESPN writer and renowned baseball scribe Rob Neyer wrote that Arizona manager A.J. Hinch “didn’t throw caution to the wind. He grabbed caution by the neck, spit in its face, and then he strangled it.”

The bottom line however, is that Edwin Jackson made history.

Over at Bus Leagues Baseball, blog e-migo and longtime baseball fan Brian Moynahan has written about a “Baseball Bucket List“, a list of game actions and events he would like to see in person. Brian listed things like a triple play, a player hitting for the cycle, and an inside-the-park home run as the things he would like to see.

I don’t know if my friend Lou has a Baseball Bucket List. Maybe he does or maybe he came to the realization that no matter how many games he went to he would never everything baseball had to offer. Maybe he was okay with that and vowed not to be disappointed when his baseball watching days ended. Maybe he resigned to the fact that despite seeing dozens of hall of famers, numerous pennant races, and a bunch of World Series games, he would never see a no-hitter.

Then Edwin Jackson got Jason Bartlett to ground out to shortstop Stephen Drew for the final out of the 267th no-hitter in major league history.

After the game, I knew I had to find Lou and get his reaction. After a game like that, I couldn’t wait until the next time I visited the Trop to talk baseball with him. When I finally found him, Lou was overjoyed, and mentioned a few of the great arms of yesteryear – the Allie Reynoldses and Bob Lemons – and how he never saw them throw a no-hitter. But after 66 years seeing baseball (by comparison, even the oldest Met fan has only waited 48 years), it was Edwin Jackson who finally gave Lou something he had never seen.

A no-hitter.

History.

(This post originally appeared on Bus Leagues Baseball.com)

The Rays promoted Matt Joyce from Durham yesterday and sent down former all-star catcher Dioner Navarro. Since I am a huge fan of “Southern Thunder” Matt Joyce, I wrote a song. Actually, I didn’t write it, it’s kinda a Garth Brooks song. I just changed the words. Sing along if you want.

It’s a three loss streak
And the team ain’t well
The Trop’s lookin’ like a ghost town
No one’s ringin’ their bell
Transaction wire says
There’s a storm moving in
He’s headin’ back from Durham
Where he never should’ve been
Southern Thunder returns
Southern Thunder returns

His OPS was scorchin’
Every pitcher around
But he was on a rehab
Gettin’ his throwing down
Blalock’s been a bust
And Navarro just ain’t right
The DH positions slumpin’
But his future’s oh so bright
Southern Thunder returns
Southern Thunder returns

Southern Thunder returns
He’s gonna play right
He’s a hometown boy
Maddon’s shining knight
Armwood’s chosen son
Florida Southern’s pride
Deep the ball flies
and the Southern Thunder returns

Fans waitin’ to see him
Blogs singin’ his praise
He had a 450 OBA
So they know he’ll be on base

Southern Thunder returns

Southern Thunder returns
He’s gonna play right
He’s a hometown boy
Maddon’s shining knight
Armwood’s chosen son
Florida Southern’s pride
Deep the ball flies
and the Southern Thunder returns

(This post originally appeared on Bus Leagues Baseball.com)

As the dusk settles on the first half of many Bus League schedules, and we inch closer and closer to the Major League All-Star Game and the MLB Futures Game, the all-stars of the Bus Leagues have already started to glimmer and shine. Last week, shortly after the Florida State League All-Star Game, I posted a schedule of all the all-star games in all the different minor leagues – both affiliated and independent.

If you don’t remember that post, let me remind you: Tuesday night was a big night in the Bus Leagues. There are only two nights this year that feature more than one all-star game, Wednesday, July 14th and Tuesday, June 22nd. Tuesday night was the mid-summer classic for the Midwest League, the South Atlantic League, and the annual showdown between the Carolina League and the California League.

In the Midwest League, the East crushed the West 6-2 behind the slugging bats of Bo Greenwell and Jerry Sands. Henry Rodriguez of Dayton also had two RBIs and Nate Freiman won the home run derby.

In the South Atlantic League, Kyle Skipworth and Jonathan Villar homed for the North and Wilmer Flores and Eliezer Mesa each had 2-run doubles for the South and the teams played to a 10-inning tie.

Finally, in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, home of the Myrtle Beach Pelicans, the California League defeated the Carolina League 4-3. According to MiLB.com, the California League victory was the first time either league had mustered consecutive wins in the 15-year history of the annual contest. San Jose’s Juan Perez and Salem’s Oscar Tejeda won Player of the Game for their respective teams.

(Like many artists, writers, and creative geniuses, I have tons of unpublished material filling up binders, boxes, folders, and file cabinets. These vary from ideas to notions to poems to half-written stories. Every once in a while, I’m going to dust one off and publish it here. This is Part 2 of a two part poem written in 2002. See part 1 here.)

Six days now I’ve been free

On the run

Clinging to my newfound freedom

Small towns disappear, reappear

The road leads me further

Their “brainwashing” failed

A bottle of whiskey

My traveling friend

But I know I need more

I need someone real

I stall in a small neighborhood

Stopping risks capture

But I have to find my past

Try to make her my future

Together forever

The beautiful girl

Pounce like a lion to its prey

To be alone with her

But it is not her I want

I give her something for her mother

An invitation to dinner

I continue driving

Waiting for a response

I know I’ll be rejected

But I carry on

Running from Alcoholics Anonymous

(Like many artists, writers, and creative geniuses, I have tons of unpublished material filling up binders, boxes, folders, and file cabinets. These vary from ideas to notions to poems to half-written stories. Every once in a while, I’m going to dust one off and publish it here. This is Part 1 of a two part poem written in 2002.)

Gotta keep running

Lead the fugitive’s life

On the lam

Can’t tell me what to do

Can’t change me

Jimmie and Frankie

Great guys

Sprung me from the joint

Into the cold night air

I’m gonna run to the other side of town

The rundown bar

Belly up

Holler for a brew

Barley and hops never tasted so good

I needed this for a long time

Couldn’t drink in the joint

Part of the punishment

Cheers to Freedom

and to hell with Alcoholics Anonymous

This Father’s Day, I thought I would do something original and pen a tribute to my Dad – a guy who brought me to my first ballgame, introduced me to the blues and funk, and taught me the meaning of the word “kaboobies”.

(According to urban dictionary.com, the word kaboobies means: “so magnificent and grand that the word boobs is an understatement. they are round and beautiful. also highly bouncey. when exposed you hear all the angels sing. they are sure to make all who witness this lovely sight, shed a tear”. The spelling isn’t the greatest, but the meaning is definitely clear.)

Besides those key life moments, my Dad has also supplied me with quite a bit of fatherly advice and wisdom. I’ll admit, that’s probably typical of most dads, but as you can see by the aforementioned high points, I like to think my Dad is a bit unique. Not only has he imparted on me such important mantras as

• Lying only makes things worse.
• Practice situational awareness.
• Republicans take money out of your right pocket and Democrats take money out of your left.
• Drive as fast as you want as long you don’t endanger the safety of others (Ten speeding tickets later, I’m kinda re-thinking this one, Dad.)

but he has also taught me valuable lessons through a series of stories, anecdotes, and situations. A few years ago, I wrote about one of these stories – a fable about the bat of G.H. “Babe” Ruth – but there are many more.  I guess I could say life with my Dad has been like living in a religious text, albeit without the angels, demons, saints, sinners, calamities, and deities.

The first story I remember my Dad telling me was about how his childhood was permanently scarred by a disgusting oral medication. According to my Dad, when he was a wee lad he had the not-so-uncommon habit of chewing on inedible objects. Unfortunately for my Dad however, this common habit caused an uncommon oral infection which could only be cured by the most awful tasting purple paste known to man – and little kids (possibly Gentian violet?). To this day, I have no idea how true this story actually is, but do know my absolute fear of the purple medicine meant my parents never had to worry about me developing the bad habit of gnawing on pen caps, pencils, toothpicks, twigs, and other assorted inedibles.

Another story I remember well involves my Dad, salami, and Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Juan Marichal. Like most kids growing up in New York  City way back in the mid-20th Century, my Dad was frequently treated to a day at the ballpark. During one of these trips, probably in either 1962 or ’63, my Dad and several of his friends went to the Polo Grounds to see the hometown New York Mets take on the San Francisco Giants, who left New York several years earlier.

According to my Dad, at some point during the game, he and his friends were leaning over the upper deck railing over looking the Giants bullpen, which was in fair territory in the oddly shaped stadium. Then, kids being kids, and for whatever reason, my Dad decided to toss a piece of salami over the rail and into the Giants bullpen. Down the salami floated, until landing unexpectedly on the foot of the future Hall of Fame hurler. Needless to say, by the time Marichal looked up to identify the culprit, my Dad and his friends had scattered. After hearing that story, and seeing the Ron Artest melee in Detroit a few years ago, I’ve never had the ambition to toss food or any other object on to a field during a game*. I fear the players and the repercussions far too much.

(I have to make the distinction of “during a game” versus “after a game”. After FSU defeated the University of Florida in 2001, I was among the thousands of fans who threw oranges on to the field to celebrate FSU’s entrance into the Orange Bowl and the National Championship Game. But that’s comparing salami to oranges – totally different.)

The third story my Dad told me that may or may not be true involves a man I mentioned briefly in the Babe Ruth bat post, the “inventor of the bungee cord”, Arthur J. Bungee. Although he never went to Yale or Harvard, my Dad is a smart guy. He watches Jeopardy almost every night, reads the newspaper from front to back, and supposedly spent time as a kid reading encyclopedias. So when I asked him who invented the bungee cord, and he answered “Arthur J. Bungee, during World War II, in order to preserve rubber for the war effort”, I had to believe him. He even elaborated on the tale by telling me Arthur J. was a U.S. Navy sailor who used his new invention to help slow down planes as they landed on the aircraft carriers. Seemed logical enough for me.

The final lesson that my Dad taught me in my formative years was to stick it to The Man for as long as possible. Especially if you think The Man is screwing you over. Way back in the early 1980s, when New York City was upgrading their extensive subway system, the powers that be in NY City public transportation decided to raise the tolls across the bridges to pay for the underground subway construction. As my Dad didn’t ride the subway, he didn’t think it was very fair that above-ground travelers had to pay for the transportation benefit of below-ground travelers. So he decided to stand up to The Man and not pay the added fee.

Being that my Dad worked nights, and there weren’t many people on the roads when he was traveling from our house on Long Island to his job closer to New York City, he concocted a plan to hand toll booth attendants handfuls of pennies and nickels and then, while the attendant was busy counting the change, he would casually pull through the toll. Legend has it, my Dad grew quite good at this technique. So good, as a matter of fact, that he not only caught the eye of the authorities, but also the news media. Soon his popularity became a double-edged sword.

On one hand, the attention meant my Dad was featured in a write-up in New York Newsday and people were rallying to his cause, including my elementary school librarian, who told me to tell my Dad to keep up the good work. On the other hand, the attention meant the cops knew exactly who my Dad was. Knowing all my Dad’s information, it wasn’t long until the henchmen of The Man started calling the house and scaring my Mom, who not only had me to worry about, but was also pregnant with my brother. So needless to say, with his family in mind, and after fighting for as long as he could, my Dad gave in to The Man and paid the hated toll.

As you can see, my Dad has taught me a lot of things, from the meaning of kaboobies to when and how to fight the system. I definitely wouldn’t be the man I am today without lessons from my Dad.

Happy Father’s Day.

Here are some interesting pictures of Tampa I’ve taken in the last few weeks:

Ybor City

Ybor City

Ybor City

Downtown Tampa

Downtown Tampa

Downtown Tampa