2012 World Series Preview

Baseball is a real special sport for me for so many reasons. Played it a while even though I sucked, have spent a ton of time at the ballpark with friends and family, have had some great times with my old man playing catch back home Nd have had the chance to interact with fans of lots of teams at 10 or so ballparks I’ve had a chance to catch games. So on the eve of the start of the World Series I’d like to share my thoughts on the 2012 postseason and how I believe the Fall Classic will unfold.

As always October brings us the most exciting baseball all year; most people don’t get the sport and think it is to slow, well when you’ve never given yourself a chance to go to the ballpark and understand that baseball goes way beyond to what happens on the field, well then you’ll never get it.

The Oakland A’s made the playoffs when in April no one gave them a chance, and rightfully so. They were in a division with 2 teams that were, in the eyes of many, favorites to win the AL Pennant, the Angels and Rangers. While their playoff run was nothing memorable, their play during the season was a thing of beauty.

Something I will never forget is the EPIC collapse of the New York Yankees. I mean, seriously, how can that happen? You’ve got Cano, A-Rod and Granderson who just were erased right of the map; first I kind of enjoyed it them I felt bad for these guys. What will 2013 have in store for the Yankees? I believe Jeter will be back, Granderson is liked and will be back. A-Rod has never really clicked with the NY crowd even when he put up MVP caliber numbers; his contract is a nightmare but I really think he needs a fresh start and will be moved to another team. Cano is a real mystery to me, he has all the tools but always seems to collapse at the clutch moment, he is too young and has a great upside thus he will be back.

I expected a bit more out of the Orioles since the Yankees couldn’t hit a lick, but somehow they were not able to grind out a series win. In my book the season was really good but the postseason will be remembered as a disappointment, if remembered at all.

On to the Tigers and Giants. Two teams that have a similar build and play to similar strengths. What I’ll do is try and break down the different areas of the game and see who has the “advantage” based on that.

Hitting. This is a clear advantage for the Tigers since they have the eventual MVP Miguel Cabrera, Prince Field and Delmon Young who always seems to have big playoff series. The Giants rely on timely hitting lead by Buster Posey but are not as explosive as Detroit. Advantage Detroit.

Starting pitching. When you have Justin Verlander on your staff and you can count on him going out there in games 1, 4 and 7 if needed you must feel pretty good, and a guy like Max Scherzer and you are in great shape. The Giants have Matt Cain, bust Barry Zito -who has been really good recently- and Madison Bumbgartner, and somewhere lost in the shuffle Tm Lincecum, who from what I hear will not be in the rotation. Both rotations are solid as heck and a huge part of why these teams have gotten so far. Again, advantage Tigers.

Bullpen. No need to get into much detail here, the advantage goes by far to the Giants.

Managing. I guess I’ll be a bit biased since Giants’ manager Bruce Bochy was the manager of my Padres for 12 years and I really like the guy. Jim Leyland is one of those guys that will always put the team in a position to succeed, he is as good as they come, doesn’t overthink stuff and just lets his guys go. Bochy is very similar in those aspects but I believe he has a deeper relationship and knowledge of his player that could prove to be the difference in the tight games we’ll have. Advantage Giants.

Intangibles. Luck. Call it what you want but so many things have gone the Giants way it’s amazing. A simple example is that double Hunter Pence got last night with the bases loaded; thanks to Fox’s 300 FPS camera we got to see how the bat broke and actually made contact with the ball 3 times! Never have I seen that happen. Just timely hits, a bounce there, and you find a way to sneak into he finals. But then again, luck is usually on the side of better prepared, more talented teams and people.

The final tally is 3-2 in favor of the Giants; but I still believe the 2 areas where the Tigers are favorites are the most important ones. Sports books seem to agree as Detroit is at -170 and SF is at +140 to take it all.

My prediction is that the Detroit Tigers will take it all in 6 games. My heart wants the Giants to win it all, hoping they can close it out at AT&T Park since it’s one of the best venues to catch a game (was lucky enough to catch 4 games in the summer of 04 while at Stanford) and they have some of the best fans around.

Regardless of the end result I hope we get some real exciting games with great pitching, timely hitting and just all around, fun to watch ballgames.
Who do you think will take it all?

Mr Khakbaz out!

Red Sox vs Yankees at yankee stadium

So I’ve been looking for a Red Sox Adrian Gonzalez #28 jersey or t-shirt since I arrived in NYC on Saturday, no luck whatsoever; I had to get a Red Sox cap, a huge selection at Lids. With some Sox gear on, I’m on my way.

Took the C Subway line across the street at Penn Station and right from the getgo had some fun interactions with Yankee fans; nothing rough, just lots of fun. After 4 stops I transfer to the D line which, about 15 minutes later drops me off right at Yankee Stadium.

While I’m not a Bronk Bomber fan I’m a big fan of baseball history so being at this stadium is just a wet dream for me. Say what you want, but this stadium is fucking amazing; just from outside seeing the YANKEE STADIUM sign right behind home plate is a awesome.

I walked around the outside a couple of minutes and then made my way inside, quick pat down and I’m in. To say I had chills upon entering is an understatement; just FYI watching a Red Sox vs Yankees at the Bronx is now something I can cross off the bucket list.

Just as I enter I find the Yankees Pro Shop, go in and find a HUGE amount of cool team memorabilia; they have these cool “lockers” for each player where you can find all sorts of merchandise for that specific player. Seriously, no one like American sports teams can come up with so much crap to sell. Got a shot glass for dad and a magnet for mom.

I keep walking along the concourse and find this store kind of what the Mets have at Citi Field; a ton of historic memorabilia. Signed balls, game used bas and bases, parts of old Yankee Stadium, jerseys and other cool stuff. Just great stuff you have seen in famous pictures -like that “thank God you are a Yankee” sign signed by the man who said this himseld Joe DiMaggio. It’s awesome to see so many pieces of historic baseball stuff; I may sound like a Yankee fan, no I’m not, just a fan of baseball history and this IS history.

Keep walking along and taking tons of pics, which you can see here. At Center Field you can go into Monument Park, another wet dream for any baseball fan. Needless to say I’m just in awe at everything there is to see in the area; again tons of pics.

By this time its about 615 so it’s time to start making my way up, up, up to my seat. While my seat was at the highest lever, I was in the first row and right behind home plate which is so much better than the left field seats from Citi Field. Got this awesome hot sausage dog with a ice cold Stella Artois, all for the low price (as sarastic as can be) of 17 bucks.

At my seat my neighbors are a tipical New York guy with his Asian girlfriend who is just an asshole (her, him not so much). She keeps bitching and moaning about everything going on, from the sun, the heat, the noise, the seats, the fart David Ortiz just took in the clubhouse, and any other thing going on. When the game started John Lester hit a couple of Yankee hitters, shenkeep bitching he should be thrown out; and kept going and going. So you have to runners on and you on purpose hit someone? What kind of dumb, ignorant person are you? If you don’t know about something, shut up and learn.

There are a couple of Sox fans around me so I don’t feel like my life is in danger for the next 3 to 4 hours. So, it’s game time and right off the bat we get a Jacoby Ellsbury HR to lead off the game which makes us Sox fans pop big and you hear a couple if boo birds by yankee fans. Next Pedroia get a walk and A-Gon hits a triple to right-center to give Boston a 2-0 lead before they make an out. Youkilis follows with a sacrifice fly for a 3 run lead after 1 out. Yankees get the bases load but only 1 run across, so after 1 inning it’s 3-1 Boston; also Mark Teixeira got hit right on the knee and had to come out of the game. Another Sox run to start the second and that’s it for Yankees started Feddy Garcia.

We are 4-1 into the 5th were Adrian Gonzalez gets a walk and two hitters later Big Papi David Ortiz crushes a ball to the right field seats to give the Boston a 6-1 lead. By now the boo birds are out on full force; we (sox fans’) are having a blast. NY gets both runs back in the bottom of the 5th for a 6-3 defficit.

After the 6th inning my neighbors leave which is good news for me. Boston started Lester didn’t have his best stuff but battled and gave his team 6 runs of 3 run ball which was pretty good. 3 relievers work the 7th and 8th (Bobby Jenks came out after only 3 pitches, we’ll see the extent of his injury).

Pappelbon comes in to pitch the ninth and get the save. It was not without drama as NY was able to get one more run on a single by Jorge Posada (who came in to play 1B for Teixeira). So with 2 outs, the tying run comes to the plate in the form of Akex Rodriguez, I’m nervous and the people left in the stands are really excited. It all ends in 5 pitches with a strikeout to seal the win for the Boston Red Sox by a score of 6-4.

All in all it was an awesome experience. Only a rivalry like this can get a sellout on a Tuesday night, last more than 3 and a half hours and have a playoff feel right at the beggining of June. Only a Red Sox- Yankees.
Got a chance to see 2 Jeter hits as he now only needs 12 for 3000. Had a couple of assholes beside me, but its part of the whole experience. I was surprised how quickly the crowd goes dead after just one or two pitches.

The subway ride back was so fun. Got to talk with some pretty cool yankee fans also with a girl from austin who was going to be in he city for only 22 hours so she had gone, lierally, everywere and not slept at all. As I was getting off the subway I passed a bar near the hotel where they had on the Mavs-Heat game so I went in, had a beer and watched the final 3 minutes of the game; a nice way to end a damn near perfect day.

For Wednesday I have nothing scheduled for after the conference, could this mean another trip to Yankee Stadium? Or dinner somewhere nice to catch hs game? We’ll see. The current plan is to go out to learn as much as possible and make some contacts that will help out in the neat future, but for now…

Mr Khakbaz out!!!

Ny Blog, sunday

Bare with me asI wrote this on my iPad and most pictures are on my camera… Will upload them when I get home

Time to kick off a great week waking up early (for a Sunday) at 9am. I catch the 1st set between Nadal-Federer in the French Open finals; what a great comeback by Nadal after starting out pretty bad.

1030 I’m out of the hotel to walk around -the best way to be a tourist around NYC- to Times Square. This guy on a wheelchair singing “nobody jerks me off like you do”, once you hear that you know you are in NYC.

Check out a couple of stores looking for a Adrian Gonzalez redsox tshirt for the game on tuesday, still not hae been able to find it. At about 1145 it find an Olive Garden right in the heart of TS, this is probably the only place where an Olive Garden has such a spectacular view. I’ve got the Hershey Store within view, so I now where the next stop will be. BTW when at Olive Garden get the Portobello Filled ravioli.

Couple of more hours of walking just soaking up the city and sights. Got into a irish pub for a quick beer and it was off to the Brooks Atkison theatre on 47th right off Broadway for Rain: a tribue to The Beatles at 3pm

Holy shit the show is AMAZING!!! I just can’t put into words how great the show is. The theatre is pretty small so you have great views from any seat. Most tribute shows I have seen are just a cheap copy but this has a pretty good production but the performers are off the hook good. The guy who plays John Lennon looks so much like him it’s scary. All of thr band members are great. Paul plays a great bass, George has some amazing guitar solos, and Ringo is great on the drums (although he looks more like Wolowitz from Big Bang Theory).

Any true Beatles fan show watch this show. It is so worth the price of admission and you will be glad you took a chance on a smaller but great show.

At 5:30 I make my way out of the theatre and onto the subway on 49th to get on the N line to get to the Mets game at Citi Field against the Braves; the trains are packed. About midway I switch to the 7th line and at about 6:15 it get off and get into the ballpack.

I can’t stress how nice the stadium is, such an improvement from historic (nice word for old) Shea Stadium. Nice surprise that it’s free batting helmet night, so I get a souvenier to take home. Got to the team store to get a couple of gifts for my old folks (a shot glass and a magnet for their collections). A thing I hadn’t seen at other parks is that you have the chance to buy game used balls, bats and bases, along with other signed memorabilia like jerseys and lineup cards; a pretty cool thing for mets fan.

Got to walk around the park during batting practice, and then got to my seating area to watch the Braves some balls out of the park. Eric Hinske was cool with the fans, also Jair Jurgens threw some ball to the fans. One funny/scary moment was when a ball was hit one a line drive for a homerun; the thing was that is was hit si hard that everyone moved away, even some dude who left his daughter to be hit by the ball right on the shoulder; it was brutal and funny at the same time. The mother didn’t know what to do, confort the girld or be mad at her husband.

Got a hotdog and a beer tight before the game, so its game time and right from the get-go the Mets were in control and hitting Tim Hudson’s pitches hard. A 5-0 lead after 4 innings and some great pitching by R.A. Dickey (whoa his parents must have hated him) pretty much sealed it for the Braves. I was so cold and I had no jacket so I had to get some hot chocolate to help me get through the game.

At around the 7th inning I decided to walk around the ball park to see all it has to offer. Check all the pics here. Had to much to eat so I made a pitstop and right at that moment Brian McCann hits a dinger which I missed.

As I was to take the subway back to the hotel I decided to leave at the top of the 9th inning to try and not be all tight on the way back. Missed the braves 3 run ninth but the game was sealed and ended 6-4. Took the 7 all the way to Times Square and made the quick 8 block walk to the hotel.
All in all a great day, got to see a spectacular Beatles concert (the closest to seeing them live in my opinion) walk around Times Square, buy a couple of things and catch a baseball game along with getting to know the new stadium.

Back to the hotel which is pretty crappy but in a great location. I’m so tired right now so I’ll just hang around and get ready for the start of the 8th Annual International Cloud Computing Expo tomorrow at he Jvist Convention Center, for now…

MrKhakbaz out!!!