BenMaller.com - Ben's Takes

Big Ben's Baseball Pick

Brian Anderson vs. Denny Neagle

Ben's Picks: Colorado

The D'backs are 6-0 with Schilling and Johnson and 0-5 without permalink

Friday, April 12, 2002

Franchise Histories

By Ben Maller

The Los Angeles Lakers honored the Minneapolis Lakers last night at Staples Center. It was nice to see George Mikan and some of the other older guys get another moment in the sun, but it was also stupid. When a franchise moves from one city to another, it starts a new tradition and should leave the old city's history behind. I follow the Los Angeles Dodgers, and while I enjoy the history of the franchise, I don't consider the team's stay in Brooklyn a part of its LA history. Let the people in New York have those great memories of Ebbits Field.

I also grew up watching the Los Angeles Rams and the fans in St. Louis have no business honoring Eric Dickerson or Deacon Jones. Just like the fans in Los Angeles can't get any joy out of watching Kurt Warner & Marshall Faulk play football--that team belongs to the people who support it in Missouri.

The NFL did the right thing when the Cleveland Browns left for Baltimore, because of the greedy owner, Art Modell. The league kept the team colors and history in Cleveland and now the Ravens have their own legacy and you don't have to read about Jim Brown & Bernie Kosar in the Ravens' media guide.

Sports teams are very personal things to the people who live in most cities. Could you imagine if the Red Sox left Boston and moved to Washington, DC and tried to honor Ted Williams and other BoSox legends? It would, of course, be stupid just like it was stupid for the Lakers to honor the guys from Minnesota.

The Lakers LA history is Jerry West, Elgin Baylor, Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Shaq & Kobe. While West and Elgin played in Minneapolis, their best years were in So Cal The real reason the Lakers paid tribute to their past was so they could sell those ugly blue jerseys in the gift shops at Staples Center. permalink

Thursday, April 11, 2002

Orioles Demolished on Purpose?

By Ben Maller

A sad story is coming out of Baltimore this week: the 2002 Orioles have been designed to be so bad that they will alienate fans from coming to the ball park. The goal is to keep attendance down to keep a big league team out of nearby Washington, D.C. According to several reports, that's owner Peter Angelos main goal for this season. Keep baseball out of DC and no matter how many games the O's lose its a "Winning year."

According to Thomas Boswell of the Washington Post, "The Orioles have simply taken the Expos' disgraceful behavior one step further. Jeffrey Loria proved that the owner of a small-market team can deliberately field as lousy a product as possible to drive away fans, dump his team and wind up in a greener pasture."

In the offseason, instead of bringing in star free agents to help turn around this sorry-ass franchise, the O's made just a few low-ball offers knowing they wouldn't get the players to sign. Baltimore's farm system is one of baseball's worst and the young players they have decided to play are not considered top prospects at all.

This is, in many ways, similar to the script of the movie "Major League." The goal here, though, instead of sucking to move to another city, the O's want to stink to keep another team from moving nearby.

Of course, don't look for Bud Selig to step in and put a stop to this; Bud's got his own problems to deal with in Milwaukee. It's sad because the Orioles, at one time, were one of the classiest franchises in baseball. permalink

Who wrote this?

This is always a fun game. Read the following two paragraphs and guess where they come from. Think hard and try to come up with the right website.

The Los Angeles Clippers first came into existence as the Buffalo Braves in 1970. The Braves were one of three expansion franchises to join the NBA that year (the Portland Trail Blazers and the Cleveland Cavaliers were the other two), as the league dueled with the upstart American Basketball Association for prominence.

The franchise later moved from Buffalo to San Diego and then to Los Angeles, changing its name from the Braves to the Clippers. In little more than two decades the team had gone through four owners and 16 coaches, and if there had been one constant it was mediocrity. The club has never earned a title banner; a pair of second-place division finishes in the mid-1970s was as close as it had come to the top. In their first 25 seasons the Buffalo/San Diego/Los Angeles Clippers played at or above .500 only six times. During that time the franchise appeared in a total of 32 playoff games, winning a series only once.

This comes from the official NBA run website for the team Clipper.com. I guess nobody in the Paper Clips front office reads the site. Heck when you think about it there really is no way to put a positive spin on the Clips glorius history.
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Wednesday, April 10, 2002

YES should say NO to Waldman

By Ben Maller

Suzyn Waldman has no business doing baseball play-by-play at the Major League level. Doing sports updates during the week, I get the chance to watch just about every sporting event that goes on each particular day. This week I have watched the Yankees play the Blue Jays on the dish from the Yankees Entertainment Network in New York. Waldman has been butchering each game pitch-by-pitch. We pull highlights from games, while we watch them, to play on the radio during the evening and every time a Yanks highlight has come up, in the last few days, everyone in our production room has cringed.

I'm sure Waldman did a good job all those years as a reporter for WFAN in New York but that doesn't give her the right to destroy Yankee broadcasts. Liberals aren't going to like this, but women don't make good play-by-play sportscasters. Heck, most men don't make good play-by-play sportscasters. It takes someone with a very deep voice to get the job done at a high level. Last I checked, Waldman and 99.9% of women don't have high voices.

I would have no problem with Waldman doing the games if she was any good at them. Guys don't like women entering the broadcast booth when they watch games. In a man's eyes, a woman sportscaster can't tell him anything he doesn't already know.

The good news for Waldman is, because of a cable dispute in New York, most Yankee fans didn't get to watch her torch jobs the last few nights.

Mel Allen the long time hall of fame voice of the Yanks must be turning over in his grave. permalink

Tuesday, April 09, 2002

Clips are Losers Again

By Ben Maller

Most Los Angeles Clipper fans seem to think that this has been a wonderful season for their beloved basketball team; these people are Idiots. The 2001-02 season has not been a good one. While the win total is up the bottom line is still the same. Elgin Baylor will be getting ready for a trip to New Jersey for the NBA draft lottery. I know its hard to believe but good teams make the playoffs and the Clips are not a good team. No matter how high Darius Miles dunks, or how many rebounds Elton Brand gets, in the end this Clippers team is no different than the Chicago Bulls or Golden State Warriors

The Clippers failed to make the playoffs for the fifth straight year. Last time a Clipper team was in the playoffs the great Bill Fitch was coach, Loy Vaught was the star forward along with guards Brent Barry and Pooh Richardson. Not making the playoffs is a BAD season--the expectations should be higher than this and it's time for results.

Coach Alvin Gentry seems like a good guy but he did not do a good job this year. The Clips have a better roster loaded with more talent than both Seattle and Utah, yet those teams get to play in the postseason. The attitudes of the fans have to change around this town or the team will never make the playoffs. Why should Donald Sterling spend any money to sign these bums if the fans are happy not having a winning season? permalink

Terrible Tigers Needed Change

By Ben Maller

On the surface it seems like a crazy move. Six games into a 162 game season the Detroit Tigers fired Phil Garner their manager and Randy Smith their GM. But these moves were long in coming. The Tigers are the most lost franchise in baseball even the Expos have more direction. At least they know they are going to fold or move to Washington, DC next year.

When they list the worst baseball executives off all-time, Randy Smith's name should be right near the top of the list. Smith was fired after tearing apart the Tiger franchise in seven years on the job. The former Padres GM should have been fired a year after his famous December, 1998 trade of Luis Gonzalez to the Arizona Diamondbacks for Karim Garcia. Smith decided to go with Juan Encarnacion and Gabe Kapler instead of Gonzo. Playing in a much bigger ballpark, he has dominated the National League with 57 home runs in 2001. Garcia is in the minors with the Yankees.

If that trade wasn't bad enough, how about the November, 1999 deal that brought Juan Gonzalez from Texas to the Motor City for the all the top prospects in the farm system. At the time of the deal, I remember Smith saying the deal would go down as one of the Tigers' best in franchise history. Oops! Gonzalez couldn't hit at Comerica Park and hated living in Michigan. It was so bad for the former MVP that he turned down $140 million dollars to leave as a free agent. Gonzalez spent a year in Cleveland before going back to Texas.

Among Smith's other blunders as GM was trading third baseman Joe Randa to the Royals. Back in 1996, Detroit under Smith sent Daryle Ward, Trevor Miller and Brad Ausmus to Houston in a deal that is still paying dividends for the Astros. These moves by Dave Dombrowski and the Tigers' ownership were long overdue. permalink

Monday, April 08, 2002

Griffey's Goof

By Ben Maller

Ken Griffey Jr. was the posterboy for the big league megastar. He was the best player in the game of baseball in the mid to late 90's. Griffey, though couldn't handle the glory of playing with the small market Seattle Mariners and forced the M's to trade him to the Cincinnati Reds before he became a free agent. That move will go down as one of the worst all-time in baseball history. Griffey went from having the world in the palm of his hand to being a clubhouse cancer who's always hurt.

From 1997-to-1999, Griffey's last three years in the Pacific northwest he went from 56 HR's 147 RBI's in '97, to 56 HR's and 146 RBI's in '98, to 48 HR's and 134 RBI's in '99. Since he put on a Reds' Uniform in 2000 Griffey, has a total of 64 HR's & 185 RBI's in 271 games.

The perception of Griffey has changed also. He went from a good guy who could take over a game and a guy you never wanted to pitch to late, to a pompous overpaid cry baby. Griffey is not even liked by his teammates anymore. Pokey Reese and Dimitri Young both agreed that one of the biggest reasons for the collapse of Cincinnati in recent years has been the special treatment that Griffey has received. Griffey was injured on Sunday and is out of action for the next 3-to-6 weeks with a dislocated knee cap and possibly the year. Even when Griffey has played he has looked much older than his age of 32. Someone should check Griffey's birth certificate to see how old he really is, maybe he was really born in the Dominican Republic.

In Boston they have the curse of the Bambino. In Los Angeles the Dodgers have the curse of the Piazza Trade. Now they have the Curse of the Kid in Cincinnati. permalink