Houston’s Chris Sampson uncorked the first pitch of the game well over Alfonso Soriano and all the way to the backstop Tuesday night.
He threw just about every one of his other pitches where he wanted, to…
“That surprised me,” said Soriano, “I don’t know what he tried to do. That pitch wasn’t even close.”
“We don’t play that way,” said Sampson, who watched teammate Carlos Lee get knocked down twice the night before but denied any purpose to Tuesday’s pitch.
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Not a peep in the Houston media. Justice blogged about it, but as we know, that’s not really reporting, and Justice isn’t really a reporter.
Too many Cub fans?
“Tonight (Monday) it seemed like there were more Cubs fans than Astros fans,” Cooper said. “That was a little disappointing. That’s all I heard was, ‘Go, Cubbies! Go, Cubbies!’ There was no, ‘Yay, Astros.'”
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Other impressions of Monday night’s fan experience,
Jerome Solomon blogs, “Shame on Astros’ fans”
Ortiz (asks one of his endless blog questions) “Why do you think the Cubs fans appeared louder Monday night?”
Here’s Footer’s impression “(Tuesday’s game,)… before 33,339 fans at Minute Maid Park — most of whom, similar to the night before, were cheering for the Astros.”
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Houston fans generally have to be invited to cheer. But, when given the engraved invitation, such as Gunther’s grandslam, they’ll rise to the occasion. Not much to cheer about on Monday.
Possible explanation for the Cub fans’ asshattery
Kerry Wood has an interesting take on why the booing seems to be ratcheted up at Wrigley these days: Fantasy baseball leagues.
“The people who had [Soriano] on their fantasy team were probably the unhappiest,” he said of the outcry over the left fielder’s early struggles. “I think fantasy plays a lot into it. It’s kind of changed that aspect.” “During [batting practice], you hear people say, ‘You’re on my fantasy team.’ If you’re doing good, you say, ‘OK.’ If you’re doing bad, you apologize.”
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Why are the Suits here?
After the controversial ITPHR, next day
a small group of Astros and Major League Baseball officials gathered in left-center field, next to a crane and a big can of yellow paint.
In response to a somewhat controversial call made during Monday’s series opener between the Cubs and Astros, officials reworked one of the yellow lines that indicates a home run, located just to the right of the “bmcsoftware” sign above the visitors’ bullpen in left-center.
Bob Watson, MLB vice president rules and on-field operations, called it a more “umpire-friendly” line, which will better differentiate between a home run and a ball in play.
A yellow wood board that served as a home run indicator was removed, and in its place is a simple yellow painted line, drawn on the inside part of the wall.
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Cooper anticipates a call after being thrown out twice in a series
he didn’t wait to hear from Major League Baseball vice president of rules and on-field operations Bob Watson about the matter. The skipper is disgusted with how the situation was handled by the umpires and called Watson to voice his displeasure.
“I called him [Sunday],” Cooper said. “Instead of filing a formal report, I called him to tell him my side of the story.”
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Arguing about instant replay and harping on past calls
Footer says Cooper supports using instant replay — the sooner the better, in fact.
Watson feel the need to answer, “The Commissioner is not a fan of it,” Watson said, “He calls ‘instant replay’ umpires getting together and trying to get the call right. That is instant replay, in his estimation. You talk about cameras and all that stuff? I don’t know.”
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Exactly why did Bud Selig endorse Cooper? To give him an excuse to meddle with the Astros? You had your chance with a team Bud, butt out.