Awkward Fantasy Baseball Team Names

The awkwardness of certain sports expressions is one of those chicken-egg moments. Were our sports always laced with codewords for various subcultures, or have those subcultures simply tried to become more mainstream by co-opting sports phrases?

Well, far be it for me to answer these questions of metaphysical linguistics, especially when more and more of you (every day) are looking for some help in putting your league mates off their game.

Besides, let's face it... Is there really a limit that you aren't prepared to go to for league supremacy? If it puts your fellow league mates off their oats, shake your naming moneymaker, girlfriend. (As always, these should fit in Yahoo leagues.)

Needle Buddies

Designated Hitters

Albert's Belle Boys

Lefty Specialists

Platoon Pals

Utility Players

Bush League Call Up

Head First

Warning Tracks

Juiced Bats

Rafael's Palmeiro

Turning Two

Hot Corners

Loaded Bullpen

Power and Speed

Splash Hits

3 True Outcomes

Double Moves

Clutch Performers

How John McCain Will Screw The Twins

Simple point, really... with the GOP convention going to Minnesota, the Twins get to play 13 straight road games against the Angels, Seattle, Oakland and Blue Jays, all because the Republicans will be taking up the stadium.
So Barack Obama, a White Sox fan, gets to help his team, since the ChiSox are 4.5 games back as I write this. Minny is also five games under .500 on the road, though one suspects that if they can't do better than that against the dregs of the AL West, they really aren't a division winner on talent, anyway. (Personally, now that they've finally gotten rid of Veteran Bad Presence Livan Hernandez, I think they'll be fine.) And as a final bonus, rabid Twins Fan (there are some, right? I see y'all waving Homer Hankies from time to time) can now really hate both presidential candidates for either imperiling their team, or rooting for their rival. Yay, us!

Crazy Like A Not Crazy Person

I caught the Sunday Night Baseball game on the Lemur last night, as the Cubs completed their sweep of the White Sox at Wrigley in the battle of first place Chicago baseball teams. (Which is, really, a post in itself, given that the series had absolutely no out-of-market hype before it happened, and a similar first place matchup between the Mets and Yankees, or even perhaps the Angels and Dodgers, would have gotten a lot more run. It's funny, isn't it, how pennant races and championships in + Media Markets mean more, doesn't it? Our readers in San Antonio are now nodding their heads so vigorously, it's working as air conditioning.)

Anyhoo... given that the Cubs were proceeding to complete their sweep and Ozzie Guillen wasn't foaming at the mouth, the Lemurcast went and dredged up the early June "meltdown" from the Wizard when he threw all of his hitters under the bus. The team, for all of you who aren't paying game to game attention to the ChiSox, then went on an offensive tear for a week or two, and remain atop the AL Central, mostly because the Tribe and Tigers have been a lot worse than anyone has expected so far this year. I suspect they are still just holding the seat warm for whichever club gets hot, or would be an easy out in the ALDS, but hey, that's why they play the games.

Joe Morgan then performed his self-appointed role of stating the obvious in a way that anyone with a functioning cerebellum would disavow; namely, that Guillen was crazy like a fox! You see, he motivates his team that way, and his team knows how to handle such things, and veterans like Jim Thome, AJ Pyrzinski and Jermaine Dye just took such things to heart and moved on. (Side note: does Morgan even listen to Morgan anymore?)

Which made me wonder... if the team are veterans and know to disregard it when Ozzie is pretending to be off his meds, why pretend in the first place?

The answer, of course, is that Guillen's got too much of an ego (not surprising, given that he's an ex-player who had a long career and even flirted with some All-Star teams in a time before highly regarded on base sabermetrics) to just sit there and lose, without thinking that he can bully his players into doing better.

It may even be true that he can get short-term results out of his players this way, much like a jockey with a whip in the homestretch. And while it's easy for a Dye or Thome to roll up his eyes, maybe it gets some rookie reliever all hot and bothered.

But if that's the case, why do this in June, when you have a big lead in the division? Wouldn't it make more sense to save that kind of negative fuel for August and September?

In this as in many things, Occam's Razor -- the ancient philosophical practice of believing the simplest and most likely explanation, rather than a self-serving conspiracy -- helps. Guillen orchestrates occasional meltdowns because they make him feel important and necessary, and they get him attention in a media market that the Cubs dominate, regardless of the on-field performance of both franchises.

He doesn't have a master plan to motivate his team, and he isn't crazy for the sake of crazy. He just is what he is: a media whore with a lower sense of shame than most.

Also, and this is the interesting part... he's the manager of a team that, as of this Monday morning, isn't pitching, fielding, or hitting very well, and just got its asses swept by their biggest rival. Anyone want to start the pool for his next blowup?

Hello, my name is DMtShooter, and I'm a Contraholic

Today in Chicago, the Cubs continued their magical mystery year with an 11-7 mudkick of their crosstown rivals. And you wouldn't be hearing about this here if it weren't for the continued hell that is my life with Jose Contreras.

For those of you who haven't had the pleasure of close witness to JC, he's a big maddening pitcher with incredible streaks in both directions. When he's good, he's a borderline All-Star with a lot of movement. When he's bad, he nibbles, falls behind, then gets taken deep. These streaks have a remarkable ability to change, usually for the worse, when I make the fateful decision to roll the dice with him... and every time it happens, I convince myself that I'm not going to do it again, only to know that I probably will.

Today's fourth inning: 10 hitters faced, 1 hitter retired, 8 earned runs, 3 long balls. Not only did this significantly impact my roto team, despite the previous 600+ innings, but it really does speak to something about the ChiSox manager, Ozzie Guillen. I'm not sure who leaves in a pitcher to take that kind of a beating. A week or so ago, Contreras was well under 3 with the ERA; now, he's just under 4. It's not like Oz was really hoping to save his bullpen, either -- he still wound up using three other guys. The Sox still have a significant lead in the AL Central.

And yet, Guillen still left in his starter to more or less get crushed. Which tells you something about the ChiSox manager. And, hopefully, something else about the wisdom of owning Contrearas, even in a 2-start week that looks good before he, you know, actually takes the hill and gets his head kicked in...

Bipolar Baseball Bonanza!

Ed. Note: The first in a possible series of feel-random points from FTT's lightly medicated heart and soul superhero, Bipolar Bear! Join in the fun and agony!

> Curtis Granderson of Detroit leads MLB in triples with 12.

He's on pace for 32, which would be the second-most in a season ever, and the most since 1912. In terms of breaking the norms, would be like hitting 70 home runs!

Of course, he won't keep up this pace. This kind of thing never happens.

Much later on, he will die. We all die. And rot, and are forgotten.

> Josh Beckett is 9-0, the first time a Red Sox pitcher has won nine straight games to start the season since Clemens, and the fifth-best start in franchise history. Clemens holds the record with 14-0 in 1986.

With 20 or so starts left in the season, Beckett has a reasonable chance to have the most wins in the regular season for a Boston pitcher since, well, Clemens.

He usually gets hurt though. Blisters.

He also had an 5.01 ERA last year, which means this could all be just a mirage.

I feel cold. And my dog is sick.

> The Yankees are .500.

I guess that's OK. Or not.

> Chicago's baseball teams are a combined 55-67, and both are substantially behind in the wild-card race. The White Sox have been shut out five times, which is tied for the most in the American League.

Chicago's baseball fans must feel sad, since the team on the North Side is torturing an old man, while the team on the South Side couldn't score in Tijuana with unmarked twenties and the ability to tell girls that you only have three months to live.

But on the other hand, shutouts are nifty! They usually end quickly, which gives me more time to feed ice cream to puppies. I like puppies a lot! And they like ice cream.

If my dog dies, maybe we can get a new puppy. Yay! New puppy!

> Cleveland is atop the Central, riding high on the dominance of CC Sabathia and Fausto Carmona. The two pitchers have combined for an 16-3 record, with a 3 run ERA.

Carmona's WHIP is higher than you'd like to see, and he doesn't strike many guys out... but that's OK because he's doing it with a great sinkerball. He's also never pitched this many innings before. Sabathia has, but CC struggles with weight and throws a lot of pitches this year.

The Indians haven't won the World Series since 1948, and I own Carmona in my fantasy league. He can't possibly keep this up, no one will give me anything in trade for him.

Soon, the Bush Administration will invade Iran, provoking war throughout the region, the use of nuclear weapons, rampant hyperinflation through oil instabilities, leading to martial law and an eternal Republican Presidency. Dissenters will be imprisoned, and my FTT T-Shirt will make me an ironic favorite among the other prisoners for forced sodomy.

On the other hand, my local supermarket has a buy one, get one free special on Stephen Colbert’s "Americone Dream" ice cream. That’s really good ice cream. My dog loves it. I think she’s feeling better.

> Justin Verlander of the Tigers gets a no hitter.

Dave Stewart at NBX gave the edge to the Brewers in that pitching matchup. I should give him a call. He's probably feeling very sad right now. Or happy. It's hard to tell.

> The Phillies, after not registering a shutout for the first 60 games of the year, have logged two in the last week. Adam Eaton did it last night, while Jon Lieber had a complete game gem last week in Kansas City.

Lieber dedicated the win to his new baby boy. That's really great. Maybe someday, Daddy Lieber will take his kid into his really big truck and let him sound the horn. The little guy would certainly get a thrill out of that!

When he's older, Lieber's kid will probably wonder why his dad helped to eradicate all life on the earth through his huge contribution to global warming. "Why, Daddy, why?" he'll say, his tears muffled by the gas mask that all humans will have to wear, as he surveys the hellish dystopia that will be our planet.

But hey, that's tomorrow. Today, that's a really big truck. I bet you could bring home a lot of ice cream with it.

What We Think We Know About MLB

> The Yankees are a seriously flawed, 85-win club that will need an awful lot of help (read: AL Central teams playing each other to .500) to be in the wild-card hunt. It’s not just the pitching – it’s also the relievers, and Cano, and Abreu, and Giambi – and no one wants to say this, but they miss Sheffield’s edge, too. (Yankee fans, this is your cue to tell us all that they need guys like Paulie O’Neill, Bernie Williams and Scott Brosius back in the comments, because it’s all about *heart*. That never gets old.)

> The Brewers are not for real, but no one else in the NL Central is, either. (We’d call it Comedy Central, but no one in the division, not even the sleepwalking Cardinals, deserves to be associated with “Mind of Mencia”.)

> The Mets are the best team in the NL – and Oliver Perez and John Maine are the biggest reasons why. But they aren’t untouchable, because Perez can lose it again at any time, and Carlos Delgado suddenly looks older than Julio Franco.

> If Raffy Furcal has the same year he did last year – terrible early, one of the best lead-off men in the league later – the Dodgers will be fine. But someone needs to check Vin Scully’s meds, because that call of Adam Wainwright being Adam Wainwrong last week… well, Carlos Mencia just threw that joke back as being too small.

> Ozzie Guillen needs – nay, demands – his own camera crew trailing him at all times. Why he hasn’t joined AJ Pierzynski in putting on the wrestling tights (we’re seeing Oz as the cigar-chomping Castro-esque heel manager), we’ll never know.

> When Barry Bonds breaks Aaron’s record, there will be three spontaneously occurring sports stories that push it off the front pages, all of which are currently on file with the media. Contenders include a current NBA or NFL player coming out of the closet, the announcement of a franchise move to Las Vegas, and video of Michael Vick feeding kittens to pit bulls. (Also, both Vick and the dog will be smoking blunts.)

> Mike Piazza is not enjoying the Wally Pipp jokes, and was faking it when he laughed the first time.

> If you are ever going to manage to trade for Johan Santana in your fantasy league, now is the time. I’ll give you Ted Lilly and Chone Figgins for him.

> Joe Torre turned off his cell phone two weeks ago, and "lost" that back-up Blackberry, too.

> We are only six weeks away from the All Star Home Run Derby. Chris Berman is already reviewing tapes of previous years, to see how he can fit in more “Back Back Back” calls. (Hint: Start during the pitching coach’s wind-up.)