Tampa-Bay-Rays

It’s time for Wednesday Morning Quarterback, your weekly sports round-up. 15 April may mean the tax man is coming around, but I like to think of it from a better perspective: Jackie Robinson Day. That’s right, on 15 April 1947 Jackie Robinson debuted for the Branch Rickey’s Brooklyn Dodgers, finally breaking the color barrier in baseball and paving the way for civil rights in America. Jackie Robinson was a hero and I’m glad that baseball honors him each year on this day by allowing players to wear Robinson’s league-wide retired #42. ...

If you hate the Yankees and love baseball, I’m sure you’re running around telling everyone you know about how ridiculous it is that the Yankees have lost two straight to a team that everyone expects to sit right at the bottom of the AL East. You might be mentioning to all their friends that it seems that all the money in the world can’t buy baseball skill or pointing to the Rays or Marlins as teams whose low salaries still yield success. You might wanna slow down a bit there. ...

You’ve probably heard the saying that hindsight is 20/20 on Monday morning, so just imagine how well I can call ’em two days later on Wednesday. That’s right, it’s time for Wednesday Morning Quarterback, your weekly sports round-up. Baseball season is back and exciting as ever! Talk about first day surprises though. Who would have guessed that C.C. Sabathia would be pounded by the O’s? Who could have expected that Griffey would hit another opening day homer? Or that the Marlins would pound the Nats? Ok…that one was a bit more predictable… ...

You’ve probably heard the saying that hindsight is 20/20 on Monday morning, so just imagine how well I can call ’em two days later on Wednesday. That’s right, it’s time for Wednesday Morning Quarterback, your weekly sports round-up. We’ve finally arrived at the last WMQ before the baseball season. Congrats are in order for us all, but I honestly don’t know how we made it so long without our beloved baseball. Here are a few quick notes about things that have been going on: ...

Everyone loves web gems, it’s an immutable fact of life. In honor of that fact, I’d like to start posting the gems of the day on the blog as often as I can, hopefully daily. I have no idea if ESPN will keep these videos up beyond this season, but until then, hopefully plenty of people will get the chance to enjoy these great plays. My favorite from today’s batch: without a doubt, Torii Hunter’s diving catch TOWARD THE WALL(!) and Evan Longoria’s smooth, clean fielding of a ball in what could even be shortstop territory. ...

When Schneider tagged me in her version of this I almost pulled a Linus Torvalds (http://torvalds-family.blogspot.com/2009/02/25-things-about-me.html), but instead I decided not to do one at all. Then I came across two “25 Random Baseball Things” articles and fell in love with the idea as a way to release pent up excitement about the upcoming baseball season. Hope you enjoy it.. 1. Baseball was the first team sport I ever played. To this day I don’t really understand what motivated my father to sign me up for the game. My grandfather is afraid of playing catch due to an incident where he got beaned, my dad is mostly apathetic toward sports in general, including baseball, and my older brother hated little league baseball. My best guess is that we were living in the mostly Cuban (at the time) Hialeah where little league baseball is the predominant sport. ...

So the 2008 World Series has finally come to a close. The last three innings were certainly tense and exciting, but at the end of the day the Phillies were just able to edge out the Rays 5-4, ending a Philadelphia drought of about twenty years of no major sports franchise winning a championship. Although I absolutely hate the Phillies and hate that they beat a Florida team, I’ll try and be a bigger man and say: ...

You’ve probably heard the saying that hindsight is 20/20 on Monday morning, so just imagine how well I can call ’em two days later on Wednesday. That’s right, it’s time for Wednesday Morning Quarterback, your weekly sports round-up. The World Series and the onslaught of new video games has mostly prevented me from being able to stay on top of any other sport but baseball. Unfortunately, that leaves me mostly at a loss for content today. ...

After a disappointing Game 4 loss, the Rays knew they had to make something happen in Game 5. Unfortunately, Kazmir did what Kazmir does and he managed to give up two runs in the first inning straight away to Shane Victorino (Kaz has given up 8 runs in the first inning this post season). So the Rays were down 2-0 for a while until Peña and Longoria did what they’re supposed to do. The both of them had gone a combined 0-30-something this World Series, but this time they managed to get on base and Longoria batted in Peña. 2-1 ...

Game 2 went precisely how I wanted it to, which leaves today’s matchup, Garza vs Moyer, particularly big and important. It’ll probably be the coldest, temperature-wise, game the Rays have ever played, for one. There’s also that alarming statistic about dome-teams having a hard time beating non-dome teams in the postseason that needs to be proved wrong. The big important points for the Rays: -Score early -Help Garza manage the Phils and keep them off of base. -If previous fails, hope Garza doesn’t give up a home run -Stop letting the Phils get into scoring position. They may be 3-28 or some ridiculously low number like that, but this is baseball and they’ll start performing when you least expect or need it. ...