The Mark Graham Sports Blog's posts tagged american league

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• A-Rod's Career With the Yanks, MLB May Be in Jeopardy

  January 31, 2013

  

  New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez is unlikely to play for the Yankees this season and possibly beyond, according to the New York Daily News.

  No matter what happens with Rodriguez's new steroid allegations, the Yankees may just cut ties with the beleaguered third baseman. According to numerous sources, A-Rod's hip injury could derail his career and could limit him to a reduced role and he could just retire.

  "I don’t know why he would want to go through the pain of rehabbing and trying to play up to the caliber of player he was, and come back to a game where nobody wants him," said a baseball official.

  "If he did that, he’d be a part-time player and presumably unable to achieve any of the incentive clauses in the contract or even the milestones."

  Before his new steroid allegations even surfaced, the Yankees have had private meetings about the potential options the Yanks can take if Rodriguez doesn't finish his contract. He still has five years and $114 million left on the contract. If Rodriguez retires due to the injury, it could allow the Yankees to have up to 85% of the remaining contract reimbursed.

  The Baltimore Orioles had a similar situation in 2000, when Albert Belle retired at age 32 due to a hip injury when he still had three years left in his five year, $65 million contract.

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• Maryland State Troopers Ask Yankees For Autographs During Game

  October 08, 2012

  

  During last night's Baltimore Orioles-New York Yankees ALDS game, two Maryland State Troopers assigned to the Yankees dugout asked players for autographs.

  The troopers entered the Yankee dugout in the ninth inning of the Yankees win and asked Nick Swisher and Derek Jeter for autographs.

  A witness to the event said, "Swish was livid", referring to Nick Swisher. Derek Jeter was asked if he's ever witnessed anything like this before, Jeter said, "What do you think?"

  The Yankees will most likely request for new troopers to be assigned to the dugout. Maybe the troopers were just trying to psyche out the Yankees, but either way it failed because the Yanks dropped five runs on the Orioles in the ninth to take a 1-0 series lead.

  Or perhaps the Yankees were fired up by the stupid request and fired back with a big inning.

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• Safeco Field's Fence To Be Moved In For Next Season

  October 02, 2012

  

  One of baseball's most spacious outfields will be getting a little smaller next season.

  Safeco Field, home of the Seattle Mariners, will move in the fences for the 2013 season ending the debate on whether or not to move the fences on one of the games most expansive outfields.

  The left-center field power alley will be moved in from 390 feet to 378 feet and instead of having a rounded outfield, the walls will straighten out to its deepest point, center field at 405 feet.

  The hand operated scoreboard in left field will be replaced and relocated at an unknown location.

  Mariners general manager Jack Zduriencik said that weather was among the many factors for restructuring the outfield. Seattle has chilly Aprils and Mays.

  "Our goal was to create an environment that is fair for both hitters and pitchers," Zduriencik said in a statement. "Considering the current field dimensions as well as the climate in and around Safeco Field, we feel this will be accomplished with this new layout."

  This will be Safeco Field's first change to its dimensions since the field's inception in 1999.

  Since the 2000 MLB season, the Mariners have scored the fewest runs and the lowest batting average at home of any team in the American League, but have the second best ERA at home during the same time span.

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• Carlos Santana Hits Double That Turns Out To Be Home Run

  August 04, 2012

  Cleveland Indians catcher Carlos Santana led off the fifth inning by hitting what he believed was a ground rule double off the Royals' Everett Teaford.

  Except for one minor detail.

  It actually went over the fence for a home run.

  Santana stopped a second and began to remove his shin guard, briefly confusing the Indians' TV announcers. Someone finally got Santana's attention and was able to laugh it off.

  Hey, its easy to laugh it off when you just hit a two-run shot.

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• Thome Passes Sosa on Home Run List

  July 21, 2012

  Baltimore Orioles DH Jim Thome blasted a home run in the fourth inning of off Cleveland Indians pitcher Derek Lowe and passed Sammy Sosa on the all-time home run list with his 610th career homer.

  The homer was Thome sixth of the season and his first since joining the Baltimore Orioles earlier in the month in a trade with the Philadelphia Phillies.

  It seems fitting that Thome hit a significant home run in Cleveland where he hit 337 of his 610 home runs and spent the best years of his career in an Indians uniform.

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• Crawford Says Francona Put Too Much Pressure on Him

  July 19, 2012

  

  We may now know a reason why Carl Crawford had an uncharacteristically bad season last year.

  According to Crawford, former Red Sox manager Terry Francona had put too much pressure upon him last season.

  Crawford told WEEI.com that he is still harbors some ill will after Francona had moved him to number seven in the lineup after a couple of bad games. Crawford started his Red Sox career going 0-7 as the Sox stumbled off the starting blocks with six straight losses.

  "Every game you really have to try and show something," Crawford said. "But I'm always going to remember those two days. ... I didn't feel like I had the manager's confidence. I don't know about the organization, but I don't try and look past the manager, so I feel like I didn't have the manager's confidence, therefore I started to think something was wrong with me, and it just snowballed after that. It had a trickle down effect, and it just got worse and worse as the days went by."

  Crawford is off to a good start this year after missing half the season rehabbing him injured elbow. He 4-7 with three stolen bases in two games this season.

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• Tribe's Chris Perez Miffed At Fans

  May 20, 2012

  

  Cleveland Indians closer Chris Perez is more than a little upset at Indian fans when it comes to their dwindling attendance.

  The Indians are surprisingly in first place in the AL Central, but near the bottom of the league in terms of attendance. Perez said of it, "The fans are going to come, I know that. It's just a slap in the face when you're in first place and last in attendance. Last. Not 25th or 26th. Last."

  Indians team president Mark Shapiro has stated that the team differs from Perez's views. Shapiro says that the Indians do have fan support.

  Shapiro said, "We clearly disagree with him about our fans. We appreciate our fans. We respect our fans." He also stated that Perez's comments were made by a desire to win and get more fans out to the ballpark.

  While it may be true that Cleveland's attendance isn't so great, it wasn't always like this. The Indians had a then record 455 consecutive sellouts in the late 90s, which has since been broken by the Boston Red Sox.

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• Mariano Rivera Suffered A Torn ACL, Career In Jeopardy

  May 04, 2012

  

  New York Yankees closer Mariano Rivera suffered a torn ACL while shagging fly balls before the Yankees game against the Kansas City Royals on Thursday.

  Rivera was leaping for a ball hit by Jayson Nix when he fell on the warning track. Rivera was noticeably in pain as he was grimacing and rubbing his face. Rivera regularly fields fly balls during practice to stay in shape.

  Rivera was carted off the field and needed help to walk into the Yankees' clubhouse. During the game, he was sent to Kansas University Med-West Hospital for an MRI. Royals trainer Vincent Key diagnosed the torn ACL after examining Rivera's MRI.

  Yankees manager Joe Girardi has said that he is leaning towards naming David Robertson as Rivera's replacement and Rafael Soriano as Robertson's setup man.

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• Oil Can Boyd Admits To Cocaine Use

  February 09, 2012

  

  In an upcoming autobiography, Oil Can Boyd has admitted that he frequently used cocaine during his MLB career.

  Boyd appeared on WBZ NewsRadio to promote his book and said that he was under the influence of cocaine for "two-thirds" of the games in which he has pitched.

  Boyd went on to say, ""Oh yeah, at every ballpark. There wasn't one ballpark that I probably didn't stay up all night, until 4 or 5 in the morning, and the same thing is still in your system. It's not like you have time to go do it while in the game, which I had done that."

  Last year, former Boston Red Sox manager said that Boyd was too drunk to pitch in the 7th and final game of the 1986 World Series.

  Boyd continued on saying, "Some of the best games I've ever, ever pitched in the major leagues, I stayed up all night; I'd say two-thirds of them. If I had went to bed, I would have won 150 ballgames in the time span that I played. I feel like my career was cut short for a lot of reasons, but I wasn't doing anything that hundreds of ballplayers weren't doing at the time, because that's how I learned it."

  He also said that never in his career was he tested for drugs. "I never had a drug test as long as I played baseball," he said. "I was told that, yeah, if you don't stop doing this we're going to put you into rehab, and I told them (expletive) that (expletive). I'm going to do what I have to do. I have to win ballgames. We'll talk about that in the offseason, right now I have to win ballgames."

  Boyd also believes that bigotry, not drug use, was to blame for his relatively short career.

  "The reason I caught the deep end to it is because I'm black," he said. "The bottom line is the game carries a lot of bigotry, and that was an easy way for them to do it. If I wasn't outspoken and a so-called 'proud black man,' maybe I would have gotten the empathy and sympathy like other ballplayers got that I didn't get; like Darryl Strawberry, Dwight Gooden, Steve Howe. I can name 50 people that got third and fourth chances all because they weren't outspoken black individuals."

  Boyd has attempted to make a comeback in the past years. He played for the Can-Am League's Broxton Rox in 2005 and announced in 2009 that he was trying to make a Major League comeback at the age of 49.

  Boyd's autobiography, "They Call Me Oil Can: My Life in Baseball" is scheduled to be released in June.

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• Astros To Move To American League In 2013

  November 16, 2011

  The Houston Astros will soon get a new owner and now it appears they will be in a new league in two seasons.

  Houston area businessman Jim Crane was told by Major League Baseball that in order to buy the team, he must move the Astros from the National League to the American League.

  Crane is said to be getting a $70 million discount from the $680 million used to buy the team for moving to the American League. With Houston's move, both the AL and NL will now have an equal 15 teams each. The most likely destination for Houston in the AL is the AL West which only has four teams, the smallest in MLB.

  The Astros have been in the National League since their existence in 1962. They have also won a National League pennant in 2005, when they defeated their division rival St. Louis Cardinals in a six game series.

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• Where Are They Now?: Jay Buhner

  November 05, 2011

  The Seattle Mariners in the 1990s and early 2000s had a great team, winning three American League West crowns and a Wild Card berth in 2000. They tied a Major League record in 2001 with 116 wins. The Mariners had big names like Ken Griffey, Jr., Alex Rodriguez, Randy Johnson, Edgar Martinez, and Dan Wilson, But one name in particular I am focusing on and that is Frank Costanza's favorite former Yankee, Jay Buhner.

  Buhner started his career with the New York Yankees in 1987 appearing in only seven games. Buhner was traded to the Seattle Mariners in June of 1988 for Ken Phelps. This trade was perhaps the best trade the Mariners ever made and the worst the Yankees pulled off.

  Buhner would be one of the cornerstones to the winning seasons in Seattle ahead. Buhner broke out in 1991, hitting 27 homers and driving in 77 runs. However, Buhner struck out 117 times and only hit .244. Striking out would continue to be a problem throughout his career and owns the Mariners record for strikeouts with 1375.

  In the mid 90s, Buhner hit 40 home runs in three consecutive seasons and became one of the best offensive players in the game. At the time, he was just the tenth player in history to pull off the feat and the first since 1970.

  Buhner was a very popular player in Seattle as well. Every year the mariners would hold a promotion called "Jay Buhner Buzz Cut Night", where fans would receive free tickets in the right field stands (Buhner played right field) if they showed up with a bald head. People that night could get free buzz cuts if they chose to and Buhner himself would sometimes give fans buzz cuts.

  At the end of the Mariners' record setting season of 2001, Buhner retired. He had only appeared in 19 games that season and just wasn't the same player as he was in the past. Buhner's number 19 hasn't been issued since he retired and he is one of the most popular players to ever put on a Mariners jersey.

  Jay Buhner now lives in Sammamish, Washington, a suburb of Seattle. Buhner has been trying to sell his house for three years, but no takers yet. He has dropped the price down to a shade under $7 million.

  Buhner is also an avid fisherman and has been since childhood. He is often seen fly fishing in and around Puget Sound. He is also an official spokesperson for Northwest Motorsport, a car dealership located in Puyallup, Washington.

  All in all, it seems like Buhner is living the good life in retirement. Just spends his free time relaxing and fishing. If only we all can be so lucky.

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• Fallen Angel: The Sad Tale of Donnie Moore

  October 07, 2011

  On October 12, it will be the 25th anniversary of the Boston Red Sox miraculous comeback in Game 5 of the 1986 American League Championship Series. It will also be the disintegration of one man's career and life.

  Donnie Moore had just been coming off a great year in 1985 with a career high 31 saves, 1.92 ERA, and his first All Star appearance. In 1986, Moore had 21 saves and had arrived as the Angels closer. He was on top of the world, the Angels were playing the best baseball in franchise history. The Angels reached the American League Championship Series in 1986 and had built a 3 games to 1 lead over the Boston Red Sox. It seemed certain that the Angels would make the World Series.

  During Game 5, the Angels had led the Red Sox 5-2 in the 9th inning before two quick runs made it 5-4. Donnie Moore came into the game to stop the Red Sox rally and clinch the Angels first pennant. Moore was one strike away from the save when Dave Henderson took a Moore forkball into the left field bleachers giving the Red Sox an improbable 6-5 lead. The Angels came back and forced extra innings, but Moore lost the game in the 11th after a Dave Henderson sacrifice fly clinched a 7-6 Sox win. The Angels were then blown out of Games 6 and 7 as Boston took the pennant. During the next two years of Moore's tenure with the Angels, the fans booed him every time he stepped on the mound as he became the pariah of Anaheim. What people didn't realize was Donnie Moore had been pitching Game 5 with pain. General Manager Mike Port was quoted as saying, "Instead of worrying about hurting his rib cage because of pitching three innings on the wrong night, he should have been out there earning his money, what do we pay him $1 million for? He's supposed to be in shape. We should be getting our money's worth." The fans were already relentless towards Moore, but Port's comments made things worse. Moore was overworked and playing through pain, but Port didn't know the situation.

  In 1987, Moore only played in 14 games due to nagging injuries, and lost his closer role as the Angels finished last in the American League West. This was the beginning of the end for Moore, as he would only play one more season for the Angels. Donnie Moore signed a deal with the Kansas City Royals in 1989, but was sent down to Triple A affiliate Omaha. In June, the Royals released Moore and the hopes of a comeback faded. Nobody wanted a 35 year old pitcher with injury problems and loss of velocity, his career was all but done. Moore was having marital and financial problems, a drinking problem, and was battling depression.

  Then on July 18, 1989, Donnie Moore went back to his home in Anaheim and had an argument with his wife after she had threatened to move out for her safety and her children's safety. That's when Moore turned the gun on his wife shooting her three times in front of his children, then shooting himself in the head as his daughter raced her mother to the hospital. Donnie Moore died that day. He was 35. Moore's wife, Tonya, thankfully made a full recovery from her wounds.

  Would things have been different had the Angels monitored his health or if Mike Port hadn't made those comments without realizing what was wrong? Would things have been different had Donnie Moore gotten help for his depression and alcoholism? He might still be here today. He might have still had a career with the Angels if he wasn't overworked.

  Life's funny, one day you have the world in the palm of your hand then next minute the world crashes down around you. Dave Henderson became a cult hero in Boston for his Game 5 heroics, while Donnie Moore became Anaheim's public enemy number one. It just goes to show you one man's glory is another man's pitfall.

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