This blog is dead. I doubt I will update it again in the future. I will keep it online for as long as possible, mostly to preserve the huge list of links on the side.

I may begin a new blog in the near future. If I do so, I will post the new address to this blog. Any new blog would be geared more toward life in general, though I anticipate there will be several baseball related posts.

For those who are not aware, my wife and I are moving to China in four days. I'm not certain whether I can access Blogger while I'm there. If not, I may have to move to a different page, perhaps even one based in China. Don't worry -- I'll try my hardest to fill it with photos from our adventures in the Far East.

Not dead yet

My apologies for not posting in nearly a month. School has taken its toll, as did the recent business drama over at Diamond Mind. I should get back to posting regularly again soon, though I might not post in the same style I had been in the past.

My project has fallen behind schedule, and will likely continue to do so until around the middle of June. But I'll still be here, and I'll try to post as frequently as possible.

For those who are not yet aware, a group is working on reviving the old Pursue the Pennant board game under the original brand name (i.e. not DLBB, or the free PDF alternative). You can read more here. I never played the PtP board game, but will probably start after my upcoming stay in China.

One more thing: I just saw this auction on the Table Top Sports forum. Looks like a scam to me. EBay scammers are easily discernible by their poor English skills, incredible promises and strange "strings" tied to the item. Seriously, if this guy really wanted $50,000 that bad, he might as well join the crowd and start counterfeiting old Ty Cobb and Joe DiMaggio cards.

Posting Hiatus Continued

I've still been playing games each day, but there hasn't been enough time to post. We had a few friends from Taiwan over this evening, and we're going up tomorrow afternoon to my parents' house in Salt Lake City tomorrow for the weekend. As such, I doubt I'll get in any post until Sunday evening, at the earliest. Sorry again for this! Real life, unfortunately, takes priority over online life. And, hey, we're still only in May; there's still plenty of pennant race left.

I recently bought a used copy of the 1985 Strat-o-matic cards on Ebay. I got them yesterday and played my first game, Cardinals at Mets, today. Dwight Gooden struck out 16 in a complete game win. It was a lot more entertaining than playing with the newer (2005 and 2007) Strat seasons. I just get so tired of changing pitchers every inning! Anyway, now I own both the '85 APBA and Strat seasons. Gooden's Strat card is just simply wicked, with Ks all over columns 4 and 6, and that A&C XY APBA card (I think there's also a Z, but I don't have the card in front of me) is pretty intimidating, too.

Anyway, until Sunday!

Sorry for lack of update

Sorry for not updating yesterday and today. As my schoolwork load has increased, everything extra has temporarily gone on hold. Hopefully I'll be able to update tomorrow, though I'm not making any promises.

May 5th, 2008 Wenzhou at Suzhou

It's a bit late now, so my writeups weren't especially good. My apologies.

May 5^th, 2008

Wenzhou Merchants at Suzhou Artisans

SUZHOU – Suzhou blew an excellent chance to take sole possession of first place in the Southeastern League today, as last place Wenzhou surprised everybody with a 10-inning win.

Down 3-1 in their half of the 8^th, Wenzhou began to strike back. Babe Hermans’ single to right brought the deficit down to a single run. In the top of the ninth, the rallying continued. Wenzhou used a total of 5 pinch hitters and one pinch runner to manufacture the tying run.

With the score knotted at 3 in the top of the 10^th inning, the hapless Merchants suddenly exploded for four runs. Two walks, a double, another walk, a single, and Suzhou’s chances looked slim.

Dale Murphy hit a three-run shot in the bottom of the tenth to bring the score within one, but it proved to be too little, too late. And thus, Vida Blue’s excellent start (three hits in seven innings) was wasted, and the chance to capitalize on a Nanjing loss was lost.

The win was Wenzhou’s third of the season, against 13 losses.

Click here for boxscore.

Today’s Other Games

Northeastern League

Beijing Mets 4, Harbin Icecaps 3 At Beijing. Grantham’s two run homer in the bottom of the 8^th secured a win for first-place Beijing.

Nishinomiya Tigers 7, Seoul Blue Dragons 6 At Seoul

Shenyang Defenders 5, Beijing Red Dragons 4 (10) At Beijing. Shenyang’s ten-inning victory put them tied for second place with Tokyo, three games behind the red-hot Mets.

Tianjin Lions 8, Tokyo Giants 6 At Tianjin

Southeastern League

Ningbo Stallions 2, Nanjing Monarchs 1 At Nanjing. Ningbo twirler Bozo Wakabayashi held the Monarchs at bay.

Hefei Hope Stars 5, Shanghai Red Sox 4 (11) At Shanghai

Hangzhou Eagles 6, Shanghai White Sox 4 (11) At Shanghai

Northwestern League

Jinan Leopards 3, Luoyang White Horse 1 At Jinan

Zhengzhou Dragons 6, Lanzhou Refiners 1 At Lanzhou

Xi’an Wild Geese 2, Taiyuan Kylin 1 At Taiyuan

Southwestern League

Chengdu Spice 3, Yunnan Bulls 2 (10) At Chengdu

Chongqing Fog 3, Lhasa Monks 2 At Chongqnig

Taibei Brother Elephants 5, Fuzhou Whales 4 At Fuzhou

Xianggang Reds 4, Guangzhou Fire 3 At Guangzhou

May 4th, 2008 Harbin at Beijing

May 4^th, 2008

Harbin Icecaps at Beijing Mets

BEIJING – Seventh place Harbin feasted on Beijing pitching this afternoon, defeating the hometown Mets 11-3 in a laughter.

At the beginning, the odds appeared in Beijing’s favor. Harbin started Ben McDonald, who had been unimpressive in his pervious three starts. Beijing, meanwhile, started Milt Pappas on the spot (due to Dizzy Dean’s injury), hoping for another good performance from their half-reliever, half-starter.

The pitching matchup didn’t last long, as Pappas was knocked out in the third, having given up six runs in the first three innings. Harbin didn’t stop there, either, as they put up two tallies in the top of the fifth and three in the top of the eighth. The impressive offensive outburst included two long home runs by Icecap slugger Jim Thome, who now has three on the season.

Ben McDonald was more impressive than anticipated, giving up only 3 runs on 5 hits in 8 full innings of work.

Click here for boxscore.

Today’s Other Games

Northeastern League

Seoul Blue Dragons 11, Nishinomiya Tigers 8 At Seoul. The last place Blue Dragons embarrassed Nishinomiya. The Tigers are now one game under .500, and 6 games out of first place.

Beijing Red Dragons 7, Shenyang Defenders 3 At Shenyang

Tokyo Giants 9, Tianjin Lions 7 At Tianjin. Tokyo inched another step closer to first place, as they came from behind to beat the Lions.

Southeastern League

Nanjing Monarchs 10, Ningbo Stallions 7 At Nanjing. The Monarchs exploded for 5 in their half of the fifth inning, overcoming an early 2-1 deficit and holding on to a first-place tie with Suzhou.

Hefei Hope Stars 3, Shanghai Red Sox 1 At Shanghai

Shanghai White Sox 8, Hangzhou Eagles 3 At Shanghai

Suzhou Artisans 5, Wenzhou Merchants 1 At Wenzhou. Kevin Millwood pitched a gem for the Artisans, giving up only a single run on four hits in a complete game effort against the last-place Merchants. Suzhou remains tied for first place with Nanjing.

Northwestern League

Jinan Leopards 5, Luoyang White Horse 3 At Jinan. Ed Walsh threw a complete game in support of Luoyang’s losing cause. Jinan remains tied for second place with Lanzhou, two games behind league leading Wuhan.

Lanzhou Refiners 7, Zhengzhou Dragons 6 (11) At Lanzhou. Chipper Jones drove in the winning run in the bottom of the eleventh, as Luoyang won their fifth straight.

Taiyuan Kylin 3, Xi’an Wild Geese 2 (13) At Taiyuan. A potential marathon was avoided, as Xi’an reliever Tom Gordon gave up a base hit, a stolen base, an intentional walk, an unintentional walk and then a wild pitch to give the game away.

Wuhan Turtles 6, Urumqi Flying Tigers 4 At Wuhan. Wuhan starter Smokey Joe Wood was unable to pitch following an 80 minute rain delay, but the Turtles managed their bullpen exceptionally well, earning the win and remaining in first place.

Southwestern League

Yunan Bulls 5, Chengdu Spice 2 At Chengdu.

Lhasa Monks 7, Chongqing Fog 2 At Chongqing. Lhasa secured another offense-powered victory, overwhelming Chongqing pitching.

Fuzhou Whales 14, Taibei Brother Elephants 4 At Fuzhou. Taibei starter Tom Glavine didn’t get out of the first inning, giving up 6 runs while only earning two outs. (Similar to this start, no?)

Guangzhou Fire 4, Xianggang Reds 1 At Guangzhou

Team Review: Taiyuan Kylin

I'm finally back with another team review! I thought I'd have these done by now, but, as it stands, I'm not even halfway through. It's harder than you think to write this sort of thing up for 32 teams.

Once again, in the interest of time, I have chosen to make this process quicker by not linking to the players on Baseball Reference, Japan Baseball Daily or other stat sites. I'm trying to cut this process down from around an hour per team, and these team reviews don't seem to be extremely popular anyway. Furthermore, there are a few Negro Leaguers who are literally impossible to locate online. However, if you're absolutely dying to learn more about each player, I recommend browsing a few of the links on the right.

Anyway, here we go with the Taiyuan Kylin:

Stadium

Taiyuan is located in Shanxi province (not Shaanxi), a bit south and quite a ways west from Beijing. The team is named "Kylin" after the Chinese Basketball Association Shaanxi Kylin, which complicates things a bit. With characters, the difference between Shanxi "山西" and Shanxi "陕西" is easy to distinguish, but it's not possible with any romanization system. Hence, the second "a" in Shaanxi. Anyway, a Kylin is a mythical Chinese bird.

Taiyuan plays in Wrigley Field, renamed Wutai Field.

Pitchers
1. Cy Young
2. Dazzy Vance
3. Steve Carlton
4. Andy Benes
5. Charlie Root
SS. Daisuke Matsuzaka
SS. Hooks Wiltse
SS. Curt Davis
SS. Double Duty Radcliffe
SS. Dave Righetti

As usual, Diamond Mind's default Computer Manger makes spot starters out of the entire bullpen. This is no problem, of course, though I can't imagine any self-respecting big league manager carrying a list of five spot starters around.

Like most Japanese players in this league, Matsuzaka is based on his excellent Japanese statistics, not his American ones. Those stats haven't done him much good, though, as the CM has only used him for 3 innings thus far. Ted "Double Duty" Radcliffe had that nickname because he was both pitcher and catcher in the Negro Leagues. He hasn't caught yet in this league, though.

Bullpen
Hitoki Iwase

Once again, the rest of the bullpen can be found as Spot Starters.

Lineup
1 Peewee Reese SS / Shigeru Chiba 2B
2 Shigeru Chiba 2B / Vic Harris LF
3 Joe DiMaggio CF
4 Willie McCovey 1B
5 Lonnie Smith LF / Bob Abreu RF
6 Kip Selbach RF / Robin Ventura 3B
7 George Kell 3B / Peewee Reese SS
8 Hank Gowdy C / Biz Mackey C

There are so few lefty starters in this league that you can forget the starting lineup on the left hand side. In my mind, that ought to work in Taiyuan's favor, because that gives fewer starts to the inept Lonnie Smith.

Bench
Dink Mothel
Dave Malarcher
Michiyo Arito
Freddy Lindstrom
Atsushi Nagaike
Roy Sievers
Sam Rice

Taiyuan is currently in sixth place in the Northwestern League, with a 7-9 record, four games out of first. They have scored 76 runs and given up 80. Steve Carlton leads Kylin starters with a 2-0 record and a 2.70 ERA. Cy Young comes in close behind, with a 1-0 record and a 1.88 ERA. Still, that and an effective bullpen haven't been enough to compensate for the awful pitching of Davis, Root and Benes.

As one would expect, Joe DiMaggio is hitting very well, at .319 / .324 / .493 in 69 at-bats. Still, it's not enough to carry the entire team, which has been hitting at a .256 clip, seventh in the league.

It's interesting to see how different teams have different personalities, by the way. Last in the Northwestern League in batting are the Zhengzhou Dragons, who, conversely, lead the league by far with 27 stolen bases.