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MLB Discussion Thread

Discussion in 'Other Sports' started by Castor27, Feb 25, 2016.

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  1. J.R.

    J.R. Member

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  2. J.R.

    J.R. Member

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  3. NewRoxFan

    NewRoxFan Contributing Member

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    Heck yea... every morning...

     
    MadMax and CometsWin like this.
  4. DCkid

    DCkid Contributing Member

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    Pretty nice offseason for the Nats so far despite losing Redon. Still uncertainty about who will be replacement at 3rd, but they’ve managed to retain a lot of players from the World Series team, and rounded it out with some more depth.

    Retained/Gained
    Strasburg
    Kendrick
    Asdrubal Cabrera
    Daniel Hudson
    Will Harris
    Eric Thames
    Starlin Castro
     
  5. NewRoxFan

    NewRoxFan Contributing Member

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  6. J.R.

    J.R. Member

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    Larry Walker & the MOAT Derek Jeter inducted into HOF.

    [​IMG]
     
    #626 J.R., Jan 21, 2020
    Last edited: Jan 21, 2020
  7. Buck Turgidson

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    Jeter missing unanimity by a single vote makes me smile a bit.

    Best commentary: “That voter honored Jeter in the best way - he chose the wrong position, then refused to be moved from it.”
     
    SemisolidSnake likes this.
  8. J.R.

    J.R. Member

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    Ha, awesome.



    The picture is a bit blurry.

    The photo is of two men standing in front of a backdrop featuring the logo of Rancho Rio Arena in Wickenburg, Ariz. They’ve just won $26,560 in a team-roping rodeo competition, although the shorter man looks without emotion at the camera even as he holds an envelope full of cash. But the taller man — his thumbs in his front jeans pockets and clad in a huge belt buckle, checkered button-down shirt and Rancho Rio cap — wears a satisfied smile.

    The photo was one of several posted on Rancho Rio’s Facebook Page this past December, and the accompanying congratulatory caption identifies the pair as Jaxson Tucker and Mason Saunders. Tucker is a rodeo pro out of North Carolina. Saunders is also a North Carolinian, although you probably know him by a different name. The grinning man in that photo, despite the image’s fuzziness, is instantly recognizable to many who don’t know a thing about roping.

    That’s because he’s Madison Bumgarner.

    “Oh boy,” Bumgarner said Sunday when shown the photo. “This is ruining my alias.”

    Yes, that was him in the photo and another one showing him competing on horseback, Bumgarner confirmed after throwing a live bullpen session Sunday at Salt River Fields. It was taken Dec. 3, a little less than two weeks before he signed his five-year, $85 million contract with the Diamondbacks. “They don’t always take pictures,” he added. “That was a bigger one.” A few days later, “Mason Saunders” earned a second-place finish in another event alongside a different partner, Ranger Hill.

    That competition wasn’t a one-off, either. One of the most famous pitchers in baseball has been competing in team-roping events under an alias for some time. Was he the Mason Saunders who competed alongside Colorado-based roper Tammy Ellerman in March of last year, two days before Bumgarner pitched for the Giants in a Cactus League game against the Athletics? “That was me, too,” Bumgarner said. Has “Saunders” won other events? “Yeah,” he said. “Maybe.”

    Did anybody recognize him? Yes, actually. Everybody did. Team roping is a two-person sport in which one rider ropes the head of the steer and the other the back legs, but more than just his partners knew his true identity. Bumgarner has been deep in the rodeo community for years. In an interview with MLB.com in 2016, Bumgarner called longtime rodeo pro Jake Barnes “one of my best friends.” Tucker, his partner in the winning event back in December, grew up 30 minutes from him.

    It’s also no secret that he rodeos. Bumgarner has been roping so long that “it’s just part of who you are,” he said Sunday. He learned the sport at 15 or 16 under the instruction of the man who became his father-in-law. (His brother-in-law also “rodeos full time during the summer,” the pitcher said.) He’s practiced roping on everything from a statue of a bull at Scottsdale’s Fashion Square Mall to Jeremy Affeldt’s patio furniture. Bumgarner admitted in the same 2016 MLB.com interview to having entered “smaller rodeos,” saying, “I try to be smart.” In a video interview on the Wrangler Network evidently filmed after Bumgarner was named AP Male Athlete of the Year in 2014, the left-hander responded affirmatively to a question about whether he ropes right-handed. “We want to make that clear in case there are any Giants fans out there watching,” he added.

    Why the alias then? That was to keep his adventures from garnering too much attention outside the insular world of roping. (“I’m nervous about this interview right now,” Bumgarner said through a smile to a pair of reporters from The Athletic at one point. “I’m upset with both you two.”) If he competed as Madison Bumgarner, every phone camera in the arena would be trained on him, he said. So, he devised “Mason Saunders.” The surname is the maiden name of his wife, Ali. “Mason” is a shortened version of Madison, “something for my wife to call me when we were out in public to keep people from recognizing me,” Bumgarner said. “But you’re going to ruin that for me.”

    It’s doubtful that being unmasked (unmonikered?) will dampen Bumgarner’s love for roping, though. While the wider world got the wrong impression of his reasons for leaving San Francisco for Arizona — “The misconception that everybody had that I came here just to have my horses is bullshit,” he said — he does enjoy the fringe benefit of having so many rodeo arenas littered around the outskirts of Phoenix. “The other stuff is nice, too,” he said.

    Does he ever wonder if he’d chosen roping over pitching all those years ago? Not really. “That’s a hard life,” he said. Perhaps he’d “give it a go” once he’s retired from baseball. But part-time participation is fine for him, though he competes at roping with the same intensity as he does at baseball. “No matter what hobbies I have, I take ’em serious,” Bumgarner said. “That’s just my personality. I don’t do anything just for fun, per se. I wish I did.”

    The December event he won occurred when Bumgarner was a free agent, but the one the previous March took place when Bumgarner was under contract with the Giants. That’s notable considering that the left-hander notoriously missed three months of the 2017 season after injuring his shoulder in an April dirt bike accident. He apologized at the time for what he called a “stupid” decision and conceded that riding dirt bikes — even though he’d been doing it since he was a kid, just like roping — was probably prohibited under his contract.

    Would Bumgarner be allowed to rope while under contract with the Diamondbacks? The pitcher answered that question with the suggestion to “maybe ask Ken about that,” referring to Diamondbacks managing general partner Ken Kendrick. Through a team spokesperson, Kendrick deferred to general manager Mike Hazen. Reached by phone, Hazen said he was “not going to get into discussing specific contract language.”

    As for his past participation, Bumgarner said that’s been less than cloak-and-dagger. When asked about how he matched up with his roping partners, Bumgarner said those relationships are a bit less steadfast than, say, the one he has with his batterymate. “There’s been hundreds and hundreds of partners,” he said. And people in baseball? “Everybody knows about it,” he said. Teams and players. “Word gets around.”

    With one exception, of course. “The media didn’t know,” he added, “until now.”



    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]
     
  9. J.R.

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    The Brewers, who lost catcher Yasmani Grandal and infielder Mike Moustakas to free agency last offseason, evidently were saving for something bigger:

    A monster extension for outfielder Christian Yelich.

    The Brewers are close to agreement with Yelich on a new contract worth more than $200 million, major-league sources told The Athletic on Tuesday. The deal, likely to be for seven years, is expected to be announced Friday at the team’s spring-training facility in Maryvale, Az.

    It is not clear whether the new contract will supersede the remaining two guaranteed years and club option left on Yelich’s current deal, whether it will amount to an extension further extending the Brewers’ control, or whether it will combine elements of both concepts.

    Yelich, 28, currently is owed $12.5 million this season and $14 million next season with a $15 million club option. His new deal would figure to put him among the game’s highest-paid players, with an average annual salary in the $30 million to $35 million range.

    Angels center fielder Mike Trout currently is baseball’s highest-paid position player at $35.541 million per season. Angels third baseman Anthony Rendon is next at $35 million.
     
  10. rpr52121

    rpr52121 Sober Fan
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    Sounds like something out of a movie....
     
  11. J.R.

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  12. J.R.

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  13. GIGO

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  14. NewRoxFan

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    My favorite player of all time... the Say Hey Kid.

     
  15. NewRoxFan

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  16. J.R.

    J.R. Member

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  17. J.R.

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  18. Two Sandwiches

    Two Sandwiches Contributing Member

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    Can I be the first to propose the Cleveland Moseses?


    Logo is just the current "C" with a part down the middle.



    Too smart?


    How about the Steamers? No jersey numbers, instead, just a brown stain where the numbers go.
     
  19. J.R.

    J.R. Member

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  20. Buck Turgidson

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