This is lousy umpiring tonight, period. First off, Julio Lugo gets kicked out without even looking or speaking to the umpire. Nowadays merely expressing any displeasure with yourself will get you thrown out, apparently. Whoops, as I’ve written this, now Brad Penny and Grady Little have been been thrown out.
Penny got hit on the leg on a comebacker earlier in the game, and Little came out to check if he was healthy. A couple innings later, Little comes out to talk to Penny. This being a game between first and second place teams, Padres manager Bruce Bochy comes out and argues that Penny has to be replaced (which the Dodgers were not ready to do, having only just gotten Elmer Dessens starting to warm up).
Little was already mad, Penny’s already been mad, and when teh umpires conferred and decided to force Penny out, Little argued and got tossed. Then when the umpires came to get the ball from Penny, he argued and got tossed.
Must be nice for San Diego to get everything going their way like this. At least for the Dodgers, this all took 10 minutes, so Dessens got some time to get warmed up.
You got your cease fire, and now it’s falling apart. If you don’t act decisively, you’re going to turn your breather into a defeat.
Let’s go!
Kobe Bryant will appear on the cover of Sony’s NBA ’07 video game. Kobe was considered perfect for a game in which one player controls an entire team.
Yeah, we all know Kobe is that important to his team. You’ll notice other guys like Paul Pierce doesn’t get these jokes, though. Hmm, I wonder why that might be? Could it be they’re not as GOOD?
Governor Schwarzenegger is raising the minimum wage to $8/hr, up from $6.75 and approaching double the federal rate. Leave it to the California Democrats to have wanted something even worse though, according to the Chronicle:
[Assembly Speaker] Núñez confirmed that the governor has agreed to support AB2068, the workers’ compensation bill [that would prevent employers from being able to choose doctors who treat workplace injuries], but said it was separate from the minium wage legislation, which calls for a 75-cent increase in January 2007 and an additional 50-cent increase in January 2008. Previously, Núñez and his Democratic colleagues wanted a $1 increase, plus indexing.
Of course, what does this compromise achieve? It just gives them more of an immediate raise than they wanted, but keeps the seat warm for a Democratic governor and legislature to come back next year and add in the annual raises, too!
If some businesses don’t fail, it’ll only be because the Democrats hinder their own policy with their foolish support of illegal alien labor. A rock and a hard place, this state is stuck between.
First Russia got hit with that bomb not too long ago, and now a plane has crashed with 170 passengers. I guess we’ll find out in time if this is just the next in a series of terror attacks.
Between the Hezbollah attacks, the missile launches, and the new round of jerking around the UN, many people thought that today would be the day of a major Iranian attack.
Fortunately it doesn’t seem like anything’s happened though, and the day’s well over half over in Iran by now.
When guys like Garciaparra and Kent went down for stretches, Gagné was out for good and his replacement was demoted, I started to get pessimistic about this year for the Dodgers. Of course, losing what, 13 of 14 games coming out of the break hurt, too.
But now, with the new guys doing so well, the old guys coming back, and the pitching getting straightened out even without Gagné, it’s looking good. But even with both Martinez and Glavine in trouble in New York, I find it hard to get THIS optimistic about the Dodgers. Writes John Donovan on SI.com:
Among legitimate NL contenders right now, it’d be hard to find a better top of the rotation than Brad Penny, Derek Lowe and Greg Maddux. Does that make the Dodgers the new front-runners in the Senior Circuit? You have another candidate? Unless the Mets get healthy, and quick, this L.A. team will be hard to keep out of the World Series.
Of course, seeing Lowe and Penny live up to their contracts begins to vindicate Paul DePodesta, as does Andre Ethier’s play as the “nothing” exchanged for Milton Bradley. But Ned Colletti’s the guy who got us Maddux, Betemit, the new manager and coaches, Garciaparra, and this red-hot first place team.
So if we see our first World Series in LA since the days of Hershiser, Gibson, and Lasorda, then he ought to get a bonus or a raise.
Frank Davies at the San Jose Mercury-News talks about safe Congressional seats and, of course, the discussion fixates on one concept: gerrymandering. And boy, does he lay it on, mostly because Democrats are annoyed that they have virtually no chance of picking up a House seat here in California this year:
“There’s more democracy in Iraq right now than in California,” said Allan Hoffenblum, longtime GOP consultant and publisher of the California Target Book, which tracks all state races.
….”Basically, Democrats made a bad deal back in 2001,” said Tony Quinn, a veteran of redistricting wars and editor of the Target Book. “They could have picked up two or three seats in California this year if they had made them more competitive.”
….”Democrats in California are miserable — they see all this excitement elsewhere but they’re not a part of the action,” Hoffenblum said.
Bad deals seem to be going around in political law, or at least attempted bad deals. You’d never know it if the mainstream press is your only source of news, though. Davies, in his zeal to pin a rash of safe incumbents on districting, somehow manages to completely miss the elephant in the campaign war room: Campaign Finance Restrictions.
Republicans signed themselves onto a bad deal, too, just a few years ago when they passed the BCRA. They even tried to make that deal worse when they attempted to ban so-called 527 groups. But this law, with its unprecedented restrictions on the criticism of candidates for federal office, including incumbents whose criticism would seem to be at the heart of the First Amendment, escapes any of Davies’ attention.
And would anyone be surprised to learn that men like Davies, with their positions in newspapers, are just the kind of people who are excluded from the CFR that stifles everyone else’s political speech? Funny how that works. This is press bias of omission at its worst, conflict of interest or no.
Well that was a fun game to watch in the late innings tonight. Of course, I don’t like the Red Sox, so the fact that the Yankees made it four in a row helps.
But watching Papelbon’s strikeouts and Rivera’s mastery was fun. Yes, Papelbon blew the save, but still: 5 strikeouts in two innings is exciting despite the one run.
As was telling my brother about HOW Giambi drove in the game winner: “Mecca lecca hi mecca hiney ho!” Yes, just put me on Sportscenter now.
Like W.C. Varones over at PoliPundit, I look forward to radical leftists talking impeachment. I want the Democrats to be pinned to that in a time when people are worried about terrorism and gas prices!