FTB 7

2013 Season

Edition No. 9

April 19, 2013

Gentlemen:

Here are the standings through games of last night, April 18, 2013:

1.	Tribe	1212.80
2.	Monarchs	1206.80
3.	Blues	1185.90
4.	Tigers	1151.00
5.	Redbirds	1132.00
6.	Cubs	1130.80
7.	Bums	1092.70
8.	Chelsea Warriors	1077.40
9.	Chiefs	1030.80
10.	Wahoos	1007.90
11.	Bronx Bombers	967.60
12.	Bears	937.00

I sure didn’t think that it would be the Tribe, Monarchs, Blues and Tigers at the top of the leaderboard. I wonder if these four teams have ever held down positions 1-4, at any point of any season? It would be fascinating to know.

What is not fascinating, or fun, is to have to watch my sucky-ass team flounder night after night after night.

Look, I know I picked a crummy team, but they can’t be this bad. As of last night, my top hitter, Hunter Pence, wasn’t even in the top 50 in the league. I also don’t have a pitcher in the top 25. Yeah, real fun.

TOP 10 HITTERS AND PITCHERS

The top ten-scoring hitters in the league through roughly 3 weeks of play are as follows:

HITTERS

	Player	Owner	Fan Pts
1.	Justin Upton	Monarchs	98.50
2.	Carlos Gonzalez	Chelsea Warriors	96.30
3.	Chris Davis	Tribe	88.20
4.	Prince Fielder	Tigers	87.50
5.	Jed Lowrie	Bears	84.20
6.	Coco Crisp	Cubs	83.50
7.	Brandon Phillips	Redbirds	81.90
8.	David Wright	Blues	79.30
9.	Shin-Soo Choo	Bronx Bombers	78.10
10.	Todd Frazier	Tribe	76.40

PITCHERS

	Player	Owner	Fan Pts
1.	Matt Harvey	Chiefs	114.00
2.	Hisashi Iwakuma	Tribe	114.00
3.	Jon Lester	Bums	109.00
4.	Adam Wainwright	Wahoos	109.00
5.	Clay Buchholz	Bums	105.00
6.	Justin Masterson	Tribe	103.00
7.	Clayton Kershaw	Tigers	102.00
8.	Paul Maholm	Bums	99.00
9.	Cliff Lee	Tigers	97.00
10.	CC Sabathia	Monarchs	94.00

FORTY TWO

If any of you have not yet been to see 42, you need to grab the wife and head down to the Bijou this weekend to see it. From a trailer that I saw and a couple of reviews that I read, I was skeptical. After attending it last Sunday afternoon, I am a changed man. It is a beautiful, poignant, funny, unnerving at times, articulate and thoroughly entertaining film. I was moved to tears—and had to fight to keep myself from breaking down into a sobbing mess—by one particular scene. I won’t spoil it for you by telling you about that scene, but you will know it when you get to it.

I’ve always been a big Harrison Ford fan, but when I heard that he was cast as Branch Rickey, I thought it was probably a bad choice. One of the two reviews that I read panned Ford’s performance, and the other one was lukewarm about it, but I feel that they both got it wrong—I think that his portrayal of Branch Rickey was outstanding. In a much lesser role, I thought that the guy who played the part of Red Barber also hit it out of the park.

The movie inspired some follow-up research on Wikipedia and elsewhere, whereby I learned the following:

*	Jackie Robinson had an older brother who finished second to Jessie Owens in the 100-yard dash at the Berlin Olympics.
*	Branch Rickey actually played in the Major Leagues for a couple of years, before getting into management.
*	In about 1959 or so, Rickey was on “What’s My Line?” (check it out on YouTube), and one of the four panel members was Chuck Connors, aka “The Rifleman,” who actually played for Rickey’s Brooklyn Dodgers in one game in 1949. At that time, Rickey was the Commissioner of the Continental Baseball League, a third Major League that was supposed to start play in 1961 but fizzled out before a single game was played. As Rickey famously said on the show when asked if the league would become a reality, it was “as inevitable as tomorrow morning.”
*	Chuck Connors made his Major League debut in 1949, playing in one game, going 0-for-1 in a single at-bat. He didn’t make it back up to the Major Leagues until two years later, when he had 201 at-bats, hit .238, and had two home runs for the Cubs. This was the conclusion of his Major League baseball career. As many of you may know, Connors also played professional basketball, with the Boston Celtics. Then, he became the Rifleman, and then when I was a kid, was on a show called “Branded.”

OPENING DAY REVISITED

My memory may be failing me, but I don’t think that I have yet commented on my Opening Day trip to Houston with Joe and Will on Easter Sunday. If I already have, please forgive me.

In any event, we flew into Houston late in the day on Saturday, the 30th. The following morning I read in the newspaper that the Houston Shell PGA golf tournament was in town, and so we drove out to the course and followed Phil Mickelson and a few of his tour colleagues around the course. It was only the second time that I have ever been to a PGA tour event, the first one with Scott when we went to Hazeltime in the Twin Cities area for the U.S. Open (the year that a couple of people were killed by a lightning strike). Phil was in contention until we started tracking him around the course, and we jinxed him into missing a one-foot putt for a double bogey on a par 3, which effectively ended his chances. Still, it was fun to see PGA tour players up close and to follow them around the course.

On Sunday night, we went to Minute Maid for the first game of the 2013 season, featuring the now American League Houston Astros against their now intra-state, AL Central Division rival. With the Astros’ razor-thin budget (the entire team makes less than $30,000,000), I assumed that the Rangers would have their way with them, but Johnny’s own Bud Norris pitched superbly and led the ’Stros to a 8-2 victory over the Rangers in their American League debut. We also saw Itchie’s fleet-footed outfielder, Justin Maxwell, hit two triples and make an outstanding running catch in center field.

This was my second visit to Minute Maid Park. I think I liked it more than the first time, although I’m not sure why. When the roof is open, it is a beautiful place to see a game. When it is closed, it’s still not half bad. We had great seats. And here we are.

A PERFECT CAREER

The baseball program that I bought contained a fascinating bit of trivia, involving the major league career of a player named John Paciorek, the brother of the much more well-known Tom “Wimpy” Paciorek. John Paciorek made his Major League debut on September 29, 1963, going 3-for-3 with four runs batted in, and then was injured in the off-season and never made it back to the Majors. He thus ended his career with a perfect batting average of 1.000. A short career, but one heckuva night.

* * * * * *

Okay, that’s it for this week. We are hoping to hear from Underbelly with a special edition of The Bellyflop next week.

Skipper

Our 508th edition