Portland Raccoons (ABL)

[Westheim]

Raccoons (23-26) @ Knights (21-28) – May 27-29, 2002

The Knights were aching under a truly abysmal rotation, which had run up a stunning 5.55 ERA two months into the season. Their 9th-ranked bullpen and their 8th-ranked offense were not necessarily any big help in trying to keep their mouths above the waterline. The Knights were also without one of their more credible batters, Stephen Ware, who was out with an oblique strain and would still be for most of June.

Projected matchups:
Nick Brown (3-2, 2.45 ERA) vs. Larry Cutts (3-5, 5.04 ERA)
Bob Joly (0-0, 0.00 ERA) vs. Greg Grams (3-5, 6.22 ERA)
Carl Bean (4-5, 3.78 ERA) vs. Tynan Howard (5-4, 3.56 ERA)

Unfortunately, we will miss the truly horrendous part of their rotation, with Ed Wallace (6.75 ERA) and Hector Martinez (7.59 ERA). Well, maybe was a good thing. We were always losing against suckers.

Game 1
POR: 3B Sharp – SS Guerin – LF Roberson – 1B Martin – 2B Ingall – RF Brady – CF Flores – C Fifield – P Brown
ATL: C Fabián – SS Luján – 1B G. Douglas – 2B J. Miller – RF Bishop – CF S. Torres – LF G. Rios – 3B Pena – P Cutts

Brown did not allow a hit through three innings (but made an error), and took a 1-0 lead on a Martin sac fly in the top 3rd, but had one of his now already famous lapses in the fourth, with a leadoff single by Antonio Luján, and then two walks to load the bases. The damage was ultimately held to the tying run only, but it was still frustrating. The Coons were a strain on anybody’s nerves again, putting Sharp and Guerin on base with one out in the fifth, and then stopped trying. Roberson whiffed, and Martin fouled out. Six hits through five, one run. Tony Pena’s leadoff double in the bottom 5th led to the Knights go-ahead run. Two hits, two runs. Well, there WERE positives: a sign of life from Clyde Brady, who hit his first extra-base hit since May 9, a game-tying home run, and the Coons scratched out another run in the seventh when an Ingall single plated – just barely – Danny Sharp from second with two out. Brown lived through seven, walking and whiffing four each in a mixed outing. Well, he WAS in line for the win, but not for long. The bullpen immediately cocked it up in the eighth, Martinez issuing a leadoff walk, a single, a double, and it was already over by then. Domingo Moreno entered the game in time to serve up a 3-run homer to Gerardo Rios. 6-3 Knights. Sharp 4-5, 2 2B; Guerin 2-5; Fifield 2-4;

Raccoons 13 hits. Knights 7 hits. It’s Monday and the week has already been going on for way too long.

Game 2
POR: 3B Sharp – LF Parker – CF Roberson – 1B Martin – RF Brady – SS Guerin – 2B Ingall – C Fifield – P Joly
ATL: CF A. Solís – SS Luján – LF A. Rodriguez – RF G. Rios – 1B G. Douglas – 2B J. Miller – 3B Verdon – C Mullen – P Grams

After the Knights got a run in the bottom 1st – and who was surprised … maybe that it was only one? – the Raccoons came back with a Martin single and walks by Brady and Guerin to load them up with no outs, only for Ingall to send one right back to Greg Grams for a home-and-first double play. The headache picked up speed furiously, but amazingly we got three more hits off Grams in the inning, Fifield plating the remaining runners with a blooper over Miller, and Joly singling to shallow right as well, before Sharp hit his third line drive double up the left field line in the series to make it 3-1. The Knights were constantly crowding a horribly inefficient Joly in this game. They had two men on in every inning, but somehow always played themselves out of it with a double play, or with a heroic defensive play by a Coon, like Parker nabbing a warning track bound line drive with an all-out leaping grab in the third. The Knights then didn’t reach at all in the fifth and sixth, but Robert Bishop singled in the seventh. The Raccoons hadn’t done a lick since the second inning, and Joly was removed with left-handers due up in three of the next four spots. With Moreno having gotten swatted the day before, Rodriguez came out, faced three batters, all three of which hit hard drives to deep center. Roberson grabbed two of those, but one fell in for a run, cutting the Coons’ lead to one, and the Coons didn’t get anybody on in the seventh through ninth. That left Nordahl cushionless in the ninth after Bruno had somehow wobbled through the bottom 8th. He walked Nick Verdon right away. Jorge Garcia hit into a force at second base, before Tony Pena struck out, then was ejected for barking. Angel Solís put a 1-2 pitch in play, but right to Guerin, and that was the game. 3-2 Coons. Martin 2-4;

We continue to be mired in 11th in runs scored. I was kind of waiting to see where our 217 runs at this point stood in relation to the last-place team, the Crusaders, and whether they’d pass us soon. Well, no. They have – really – 162 runs in 51 games. They are worse than the Raccoons – BY A FULL RUN.

Game 3
POR: 3B Sharp – LF Parker – CF Roberson – 1B Martin – RF Brady – SS Guerin – C Fifield – 2B Gabriel – P Bean
ATL: CF A. Solís – SS Luján – LF A. Rodriguez – RF G. Rios – 1B G. Douglas – 2B J. Miller – 3B Verdon – C Fabián – P Howard

For consecutive days, Gary Fifield gave the Raccoons the lead, with a 1-out RBI single in the second inning. Manny Gabriel was plunked to load them up and then Carl Bean singled through on the left side for a second run, and we got a Sharp sac fly for a 3-0 lead, and we put up another 3-spot in the next inning with a Martin home run and a 2-run single by Manny Gabriel. Bean soon became wonky however. The Knights got a run in the third, and Bean kept putting men on. In the bottom 6th, the Knights were trailing by six, but put their first three men on with hits. A daring grab by Clyde Brady was the turnaround in the inning and the Knights plated only one run, and the runners that reached second and third with no outs were stranded there. But it didn’t get better. In the seventh, Luján made the first out, but again the Knights reeled off three straight hits off Bean and this time he was yanked. Bruno was not pitching well right now, but got manageable grounders to Sharp and Guerin to escape the jam with a 7-3 score. Bottom 8th, more mess going on. Miller got two outs, but put two on. More traffic. Despite the lefties Rodriguez and Rios next, we went for Nordahl. Stop it, Danny! Nope. No, he found it necessary to surrender a 2-run triple to Rodriguez before Rios grounded out, getting the Knights back to 7-5. The Coons had been hibernating offensively for the last three innings. Martin then hit a leadoff single in the ninth, was run for by Gil Flores, who immediately got himself thrown out stealing, and the Raccoons ended up leaving runners on the corners when Manuel Reyes came in and retired Gabriel for the third out. An insurance run would have been nice, but Nordahl didn’t need one in the end, setting the Knights down 1-2-3. 7-5 Raccoons. Martin 2-5, HR, RBI; Brady 2-3, 2 BB; Guerin 2-4, BB; Fifield 3-5, 2B, 2 RBI;

Neil Reece was assigned for a short rehab assignment in St. Petersburg on Thursday, which we had off.

Raccoons (25-27) @ Titans (34-20) – May 31-June 2, 2002

Yuck, the Titans. Fourth in runs scored, second in runs allowed, yep, it’s still a good team, maybe not as dominant as they were last year, winning over 100 games. Their .630 winning percentage might even be mostly on the terrible opposition… the Raccoons did come into the series in third place after all.

Projected matchups:
Ralph Ford (6-3, 3.07 ERA) vs. Jorge Chapa (5-4, 2.82 ERA)
Randy Farley (2-7, 4.71 ERA) vs. Bryce Hildred (5-1, 2.67 ERA)
Nick Brown (3-2, 2.47 ERA) vs. Jason O’Halloran (6-2, 2.85 ERA)

Might be some short games here. The Raccoons might rack up less than 18 hits in the entire series…

Game 1
POR: 3B Sharp – SS Guerin – CF Roberson – 1B Martin – 2B Ingall – RF Brady – C Fifield – LF Parker – P Ford
BOS: 2B D. Mendez – SS Austin – 1B Matsumoto – RF G. Munoz – LF Jin – 3B V. Flores – CF Bryant – C Bader – P Chapa

Ingall single magic in the first, when Marv plated Roberson with two out, and Brady followed him up with another single to got Martin home for an early 2-0 lead. However, Ford was not up to the task and got crowded by the second inning, where an RBI triple by Howard Bryant got the Titans on board. They left two on in that inning, and the bags were left full in the third. David Mendez singled home the tying run, as the Titans left two on again. After four, 2-2, and 14 hits combining both teams with lots of missed chances, and it continued that way. Both of the next two innings, both teams had one hit, with the Coons twice hitting into an inning-ending double play, and the Titans leaving their man at second base. And the Raccoons just couldn’t do ****. Well, they did manage to hit into another double play in the eighth. The Coons’ pen had a clean eighth, the first inning since the first that the Titans didn’t get runners! Mixing and matching, we ran out of arms, and Miller, who had struck out Corey Bader to end the eighth, was still lingering in the bottom 9th of the tied game when the Titans sent the devil Daniel Silva to pinch-hit. He lined to the right side but Ingall nabbed it! Next was Kinnear, flew to deep right, but out to Brady. Mark Austin flew to deep center, deep, deep – Roberson! And extra innings. Top 10th, facing John Bennett, Guerin grounded out, but Roberson reached on an error by Hector Ramirez, who was in the game now, being put on second base after a throw into the seats. Martin was walked intentionally, and Ingall whiffed. Brady went to a full count before ticketing a hopper up the middle and it eluded Mark Austin – and Roberson scored from second. No more offense came forth, and so it was on Danny Nordahl again, who popped up Matsumoto on the first pitch and whiffed Munoz. Then came Jin, ex-Coon, and tripled, just like that. Next was Victor Flores, batting .395 in 82 AB. Behind him was Bryant, who had excelled already today. Flores was a righty, Bryant batted switch. No, it was wonky. No, it was too wonky. Nordahl was tasked with Flores, who worked a full count walk, and then Bryant singled up the middle to blow the Coons’ lead. Lopez flew out to right to extend the game. The Raccoons had only one more base runner through the next three innings. They sucked, that was all there was to it. The Titans eventually worked out a way to walk off against Huerta in the 13th, his third inning, with a 2-out single by Hector Ramirez, who advanced a base on a passed ball on Mark Thomas. That error was fatal, as Mark Austin then singled him home. 4-3 Titans. Sharp 3-5, BB; Ingall 4-5, BB, 2B, RBI; Brady 3-6, 2 RBI; Moreno 1.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K; Miller 1.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K; Huerta 2.2 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 5 K, L (0-2);

Miserable **** team…

Well, it was one error too much for Mark Thomas, who got booted. Batting .133 is one thing, but being **** behind the plate on top of that is another. Pablo Fernandez was batting a markedly unstellar .209 in AAA, but it was a new face to get mad at. Fernandez was a former first round pick by the Indians in 1995 that was on the top 100 prospect list for a few years, but it had not turned into more than 17 AB for him so far.

And because we don’t have any other crap to cry about, Chris Roberson is now batting .170 over two weeks.

And next is the auto-loss guy. Well, one of them.

Game 2
POR: 3B Sharp – LF Parker – RF Brady – 1B Martin – SS Guerin – 2B Ingall – CF Lyon – C Fifield – P Farley
BOS: SS D. Silva – 2B Matsumoto – RF G. Munoz – LF Jin – C L. Lopez – 3B Austin – CF Garrison – 1B H. Ramirez – P Hildred

Farley, that auto-loss guy, well, one of them, fell behind on a Lopez triple and Austin sac fly in the bottom 2nd, but the Raccoons, who had no hits, one walk, and one double play to their credit through three innings, broke through in the fourth when Parker got on, Brady doubled to score him, and Martin hit one out, flipping the score to 3-1 in a hurry, and Danny Sharp had waited all the way to June, but hit his first long shot of the year in the fifth, a solo job, to make it 4-1. Farley had been quite solid after the second, but the sixth started with Hildred reaching on a Guerin error, and the inevitable Daniel Silva singled past Ingall to put runners on the corners, have the tying run at the plate, and no outs. Silva even stole second – and the Titans still didn’t score, with a poor grounder to Farley by Matsumoto, and two soft flies to shallow outfield regions reachable by the brown-clad guys. Going to the top 7th, back-to-back 2-out doubles by Farley(!) and Sharp pushed the score to 5-1, and nothing really got to Farley the next two innings, Titans-wise. He reappeared in the bottom 9th, up by four and Nordahl unavailable after pitching three out of the last four days. No Titan reached, and the game ended with a K to Jin. 5-1 Titans. Sharp 2-3, BB, HR, 2B, 2 RBI; Farley 9.0 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 4 K, W (3-7) and 1-4, 2B;

Not only Sharp homering took all the way to June. This was also the first complete game by a starter for the Raccoons this season! And by the auto-loss guy!

Game 3
POR: 3B Sharp – SS Guerin – 2B Ingall – 1B Martin – CF Roberson – RF Brady – LF G. Flores – C Fernandez – P Brown
BOS: 2B D. Mendez – SS H. Ramirez – 1B Matsumoto – RF G. Munoz – LF Jin – 3B V. Flores – CF Austin – C Bader – P O’Halloran

The rubber game was over in the blink of an eye. The Titans got a triple again, by Ramirez in the first, scoring him easily, and in the second, Flores singled, Austin doubled, two runners in scoring position with no outs, and while Brown struck out Bader and O’Halloran, Guerin misfielded Mendez’ grounder and the Titans went up 3-0 before Brown struck out Ramirez. That was the ballgame, with O’Halloran dealing. Pablo Fernandez in his first time starting for the Furballs did not make a good impression, either, allowing a passed ball in the third that moved another pair of runners into scoring position, but Brown struck out Austin to end the inning, and then Fernandez struck out to end the top 4th with two Critters stranded. Offensively, the Raccoons were never anything else than helpless, getting a chance RBI from Gil Flores in the fourth (another first for the year), but never mattered. Brown went into the eighth but gave up singles to Munoz and Jin without retiring anybody, and thanks to the abysmal bullpen got stuffed for five runs total. Martinez allowed three singles, and Rodriguez managed to complete a run through the lineup without retiring anybody, but walked in THREE runs. Ricardo Huerta eventually surrendered a grand slam to Mark Austin that made this a laugher, with an 11-run eighth inning. 14-1 Titans. Sharp 2-4; Martin 2-4;

Manuel Martinez this week: 3 G, 0.2 IP, 5 H, 1 BB, 0 K, 6 R, 6 ER, 81.00 ERA. Nice line for a wannabe setup man.

Abysmal **** team from hell, **** as ***.

In other news

May 28 – Pittsburgh’s SP Jerry Lane (2-5, 4.81 ERA) requires surgery to remove bone chips from his elbow and might be out for the season.
May 28 – The Falcons present us the next player with a 20-game hitting streak, as C Fernando Chavez (.368, 1 HR, 15 RBI) logs three base knocks in a 9-6 loss to the Loggers.
May 29 – OCT 1B Tomas Cardenas (.412, 8 HR, 46 RBI) will be forced to take a break from killing pitchers, being sidelined with a mild hamstring strain. He might not miss much more than one week, though.
May 29 – SAL LF Dale Wales (.322, 2 HR, 16 RBI) might miss a month with a sore shoulder.
May 31 – NYC LF/RF Martin Ortíz (.297, 2 HR, 12 RBI) has a 20-game hitting streak going as well, logging three hits in a 10-9 win of the Crusaders over the Indians.
June 1 – Sidelined for four weeks with a herniated disc will be IND CL Iemitsu Rin (3-1, 0.31 ERA, 9 SV).

Complaints and stuff

The Portland Raccoons and Clyde Brady on Saturday agreed to a 4-yr, $4.8M contract extension. Brady was bound for free agency after the 2003 season with an estimate in the range of $1.1M. He makes $1M flat this year. It is a bit of a risk, since his stellar 2001 season was in fact crippled by injury that left him out of more than half the games, and it has been a terrible struggle this season, at least in May. He is warming up a bit again now. Well, he’s on base a lot, but he can’t get balls neither in, nor out. It’s two months, there’s four months left.

That leaves Bean and Palacios heading for arbitration for the final time this fall. Also, Matthews, Ingall, and Flores will be free agents. Well, nobody needs Flores. Really. Nobody. And Ingall would be 34 next year, and we will have to see how he holds up this year. Matthews can do most things Ingall can do and is five years younger. You have to be aware of the following however: we have NO infield prospects in our system. NONE. There is NOBODY. All the guys we drafted, the Matt Loves and Miguel Ramirezes, they have all not panned out at all. We have a few outfielders and a couple of pitching hopes (none really in AAA, however). But we have NO infielders. So if we can get Matthews and Ingall both for cheap, that might be a solid option for another year.

Especially since we’re spending our time mired in the doldrums.

[Westheim]

2002 AMATEUR DRAFT POOL

This year’s draft pool is just like the last. There are no starting pitchers, centerfielders and third basemen to be had. Thankfully, we are settled in two of those areas for the moment, but you can never have too many starting pitchers, right? Anyway, there’s a wealth of mediocre first basemen and catchers available this time. But there are a few gems in there, too. Here’s 360 draft picks condensed into the top dozen or so.

SP Bob Bowden (11/14/10) – yes, that’s the best!

RP Helio Maggessi (20/16/14)
RP Tommy Wooldridge (18/15/12)
RP Adam Riddle (18/11/11)
RP Jason Long (15/14/13)

C Rodney Gibson (19/5/20)
C Aaron Case (12/19/13)

SS Ieyoshi Nomura (20/6/16) – though you might want to move him to a different position…
INF/LF Dave McCormick (16/13/9)
1B/3B Pedro Reyes (13/12/14)

LF/RF Stanton Martin (16/16/7)
LF/RF Rodrigo Lopez (16/8/16)
RF/LF Clint Phillip (10/16/13)
OF Orlando Sanchez (11/12/12)

The Coons will pick seventh in every round, and we have no supplemental picks. The supplemental round has only 33 picks this time, the least it has had in ages. The Titans will have six of those picks, indicating the kind of bloodshed that took place in Mass this winter, including the last four consecutively in the supplemental round. In total they have NINE of the first 81 picks!

I like Maggessi, a right-hander, but he’s only 17, and 17-year olds are dicey. (Nick Brown was drafted as a 17-year old, but you know where he was drafted…) Rodney Gibson is the only other top pick willing to sign for slot, but OSA has him nowhere on their list. Well, all the relievers on this shortest shortlist are willing to sign for either slot or decent amounts (under $500k), and the best bet might be righty Tommy Wooldridge among those, whiffing 129 in 93 innings for Illinois State. He’s 23 already.

Stanton Martin would be a great choice, but he has the highest bonus demand in the entire pool with $2.875M, and we completely busted our budget wide open the last two years with the signings of Daniel Sharp and Chris Beairsto, respectively. I would like to not do that yet again, especially on an outfielder, where we already have a strong first suit in Roberson, Reece, and Brady, with Beairsto being much better in AAA than last August and September. The outfield is not our main field of issues, so blowing almost $3M on another outfielder at best one year away from the Bigs is not a prudent choice. We might pick someone like Sanchez in the second or third round. Although we have a terrible history with players named Orlando.

Nomura is another peculiar option. He’s a shortstop in high school, but his hands AND feet are not very quick. The bat potential is tremendous, though. He’d sign for $620k. (Our current budget room is less than $300k, by the way)

Yes, it’s not only a talent choice for the Coons, it’s also a money choice, and we should occasionally heed to that second area, too.

And to make things more complicated, only Rodrigo Lopez (#4), Pedro Reyes (#5), and Aaron Case (#10) rank in the BNN Top 10.

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Even though the season is slowly going into the gutters, we ask you to please come to the ballpark as we start a 7-game home stand this Monday. Pretty please. We will have the action here. Not necessarily on the field, but there will be action and gimmicks.

Tuesday, June 4 will be Scott Wade Bobblehead Night. First 10k fans through the gates 12 years or older will receive a brand new shiny Scott “Gobbler” Wade bobblehead. Get old #38 while supplies last!

On Friday, June 7, first 10k fans through the gates 12 years of older will get a free T-shirt “I went to a Raccoons game and lived through it!” with a dancing raccoon on the front.

Saturday, June 8, there will be a postgame concert by up and coming Portland indie band “The Broken Chairs”, a trio playing unplugged electric guitar, xylophone, and a cat. Can’t miss those boys!

Yeah, Maud is getting desperate. Not enough people coming to swallow crappy baseball and junk food. Slappy and I bought into the bobblehead, but the rest… We’ve been promised a Wet T-Shirt Contest for next month though. All contestants will be employees of that restaurant with the owl in the logo. I think Maud was making this up to get me to sign up those Chairs…

[Questdog]

Bobby Bowden ought to be good for 300 wins......

(maybe you will not get this reference, so I post a link:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Bowden)

[Westheim]

Originally Posted by Questdog

Bobby Bowden ought to be good for 300 wins......

(maybe you will not get this reference, so I post a link:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Bowden)

Football is the game that's played with those red eggs, right?

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Raccoons (26-29) vs. Crusaders (24-31) – June 3-6, 2002

Four games against the bottom dwellers of the CL North. Turns out the bottom is not far removed from the Raccoons after all. These were two absolute worst offensive teams in the CL (although their offenses were offensive after all), and in that the Raccoons were still leading the Crusaders by 45 runs – they were sitting at a gruesome 3.4 R/G mark. The Coons’ 4.2 R/G was not great, but somehow could be worked with. Allowing the fourth-least runs in the CL was nothing that remotely helped the Crusaders in their situation.

Projected matchups:
Bob Joly (1-0, 2.45 ERA) vs. Anibal Sandoval (7-4, 1.44 ERA)
Carl Bean (5-5, 3.82 ERA) vs. Edgar Rey (2-5, 5.68 ERA)
Ralph Ford (6-3, 3.07 ERA) vs. Greg Connor (5-6, 4.37 ERA)
Randy Farley (3-7, 4.26 ERA) vs. Kelly Fairchild (1-4, 3.21 ERA)

Rey is the lone left-hander in the group, while Sandoval is probably wondering how he can lose four games with his ERA.

Game 1
NYC: LF M. Ortíz – 2B Brantley – RF A. Johnson – 1B Breach – SS Rice – C Olson – CF R. Chavez – 3B J. Martinez – P Sandoval
POR: 3B Sharp – LF Parker – RF Brady – 1B Martin – SS Guerin – 2B Ingall – CF Lyon – C Fifield – P Joly

And wouldn’t you know it, the game had no scoring in four innings. The Crusaders had been closer to a pair of runs, as Avery Johnson had a fly picked off the top of the fence by Chris Parker in the first inning. In the fifth, the Crusaders had two singles with one out, and Sandoval bunted the runners into scoring position. Martin Ortíz, whose hitting streak had already been extended to start this game, lobbed a single into shallow left and both runners scored. The Raccoons meanwhile were nowhere in the picture, with TWO hits through seven innings. In the top 8th, Joly retired Brantley before leaving for Moreno to face the left-handers. Johnson doubled anyway, but Breach made an out. Miller retired Rice to keep it 2-0. In the bottom of the inning, Fifield singled with one out, and then Roberson grounded to short, but Rice misplayed that double play grounder and everybody was safe – which cost the Crusaders dearly. Daniel Sharp came up, labored a full count and then pierced Sandoval with a liner into the left corner that plated both runners! Unfortunately, Parker and Brady proved unable to get Sharp home from second. And now you had a tied game, firmly enforced by closers Dan Nordahl and Dane Sanders in the ninth, and nobody to drive in a run. Not only delivered Sanders shutout ball in the ninth and tenth, he was also at the plate against Huerta with two out in the top 11th and Vincente Gonzalez on third base. Gonzalez had reached on an infield single. And Sanders dropped an infield single that defeated the battery for the second time in the inning. Gonzalez scored, 3-2 New York. Then came the bottom 11th, with a new pitcher in Leonardo Sosa, and Clyde Brady hit a leadoff double. Martin then fired a shot to deep left – which Ortíz caught nevertheless. Concie however singled to center, scoring Brady and re-tying the game. Next was Ingall, but Concie quickly stole second, his tenth of the year. Ingall fell to 1-2 before he lobbed a soft pop up the right field line. Johnson couldn’t get it, and Concie ran, ran, ran – and was safe! 4-3 Coons! Sharp 3-5, 2B, 2 RBI; Ingall 2-4, BB, RBI; Joly 7.1 IP, 7 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 3 K;

Concie drew a walk off Sandoval (stealing his ninth bag eventually) in the bottom 7th in this game. That was the tenth walk given up all year by Sandoval in almost 100 innings of work. He is THAT good. He still didn’t win.

Now, are you ready for the bad news?

After the game, both Domingo Moreno and Dan Nordahl were uncomfortable. Both were sent for evaluation on Tuesday, and neither was available for the time being.

Oh, we’re done. Never mind Neil Reece rejoining us with Cal Lyon vanishing into the void that was Florida.

Game 2
NYC: LF M. Ortíz – 2B Brantley – RF A. Johnson – 1B Breach – SS Rice – CF Britton – C Olson – 3B V. Gonzalez – P Rey
POR: 3B Sharp – SS Guerin – CF Reece – 1B Martin – LF Roberson – 2B Ingall – RF Flores – C Fernandez – P Bean

The second game was no different from the first. The Raccoons were outright awful at the plate, while the Crusaders at least had one or two moments. It happened in the second inning, two in scoring position and two out with Gonzalez at the plate. He was batting under .200 and Rey – well, the most stupid things happen with three on, two out, and the pitcher batting. Bean was told to go after Gonzalez, Gonzalez doubled, and that was that. Bean pitched nine, Rey pitched eight, the Raccoons had four meek singles against him, and not even the faint shadow of a run. Sanders was back at it in the bottom 9th, up 2-0, and Reece hit a leadoff single. Then it was on Johnson again, misfielding a Martin single for an extra base, and all of a sudden the tying runs were in scoring position with no outs, and only right-handers up until Bean’s spot against the southpaw Sanders. The first such righty fell behind 0-2 before bumping a grounder to third that Gonzalez managed to miss for an RBI single. And then Ingall lined to the right side, but Breach caught it and tagged out Roberson. The ballpark gasped in disbelief, but this rally was killed. Matthews hit for Flores, walked, and Brady hit for Fernandez, shot the first pitch to left, but Gonzalez got that one. Martin was starved. 2-1 Crusaders. Guerin 2-4; Martin 2-3, BB; Bean 9.0 IP, 8 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 4 K, L (5-6);

Well, that is just not working well for us. Last place keeps getting closer. At the very least, we managed to give Martin Ortíz a **** day, ending his hitting streak at 23 games.

Of course, being in Portland, one piece of mildly indifferent news always is followed by at least one piece of bad news. Wednesday morning we got the medical report. First the unfortunate, but still not too horrendous news: Dan Nordahl had some soreness in his shoulder and would have to be shut down for a few weeks, three at most.

Now the bad news: Domingo Moreno had torn his labrum and was going to miss most, if not all of the remainder of the season.

So, two guys headed for the DL, and we scrambled to find replacements. Well. I would much rather eat a Coons hat, but no way led past Juan Diaz. I know, I know, stop moaning. We also added Sergio Vega, with the other right-handed options Lawrence Rockburn and Kazuhiko Kichida neither on the 40-man roster, nor ready to survive in the Bigs. With Manuel Martinez surrendering six runs in two thirds of an inning last week, Marcos Bruno was assigned temporary closer.

Game 3
NYC: LF M. Ortíz – 2B Brantley – CF Gonzales – 1B Breach – SS Rice – C Olson – RF Britton – 3B J. Martinez – P Connor
POR: 3B Sharp – SS Guerin – CF Reece – 1B Martin – RF Brady – LF Roberson – 2B Ingall – C Fifield – P Ford

These two teams’ acts got tiring by now, but another pitchers’ duel unfolded after both starters had a busy first inning before settling into lockdown mode. Ford left two on, the Coons even left them loaded, and then nothing happened until the sixth. Then, Guerin led off with a double, and Reece, who had struck out twice so far, singled to right to bring home the first run of the game. Ford walked a man in the seventh but soon escaped on a double play, but Connor was the guy running out of juice. Bottom 7th, Roberson singled, Ingall singled, and then Fifield uncorked a bomb on a 3-1 pitch to ramp the score to a blistering 4-0! Problem was, the Crusaders put their first two batters on base in the eighth. Ford struck out Ortíz, then was removed with the righty Brantley next. Martinez was chosen, with his first pitch rammed to deep right by Brantley, but Brady made a great play. Gonzales struck out, ending the inning. The ninth was assigned to Rodriguez with the lefty Breach up first, with Bruno in the wings. We didn’t need him, however, with Rodriguez sitting the Crusaders down in order, and they were held to three hits total. 4-0 Coons. Guerin 2-4, 2B; Parker (PH) 1-1; Ingall 2-4; Ford 7.1 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 4 K, W (7-3) and 2-3, 2B;

Game 4
NYC: LF M. Ortíz – 2B Brantley – RF A. Johnson – 1B Breach – SS Rice – CF Britton – C Olson – 3B J. Martinez – P Fairchild
POR: 3B Sharp – RF Brady – CF Reece – 1B Martin – LF Roberson – 2B Matthews – SS Gabriel – C Fifield – P Farley

Kelly was coming along great, despite some walk issues, and NO run support. This game was somehow different from the first three. There was plenty of traffic on the bases – but still no scoring. The Raccoons left pairs of runners on in each of the first three innings, while the Crusaders totaled six stranded over four. In the bottom 4th, Gabriel led off with a single. Fifield made an out, and Mike Olson threw away Randy’s bunt. That put two in scoring position for the Coons, with one out. It was their best chance yet. Fairchild got ahead of Danny Sharp, but a 1-2 pitch was taken into deep center, and actually outta deep center! 3-0 Coons on one big rip! We added a run in the fifth, and then it was on Farley to crumble some. A walk, a single, and a double by Britton plated two runs for the Crusaders. Farley’s struggles were not ending, however, and in the seventh, he had two runners on base with Johnson up. Rodriguez came in again and got a fly right to Brady to end the inning. The bottom 7th brought some relief. Roberson and Matthews singled to get started, Roberson stole third, and then Gabriel hit his fourth single on the day to plate Roberson. Fifield’s walk loaded them up before Ingall hit for Rodriguez and hit into a run-scoring, yet still deflating double play. We were however up by four again, and oh, the bullpen opens, and out comes Juan Diaz. He got Breach and Rice, before Britton and Olson reached base on a single and a walk, respectively, bringing out Marcos Bruno for a 4-out save, hopefully. After two strikes to Jose Martinez, the third pitch was wild, but Martinez popped out on the next offering to get that over with. But the job got infinitely easier in the bottom 8th. Nick Hartman walked Brady and Reece, before Martin opened the gap with an RBI double. Don Richardson replaced Hartman, only to serve up a yard-leaver to Chris Roberson that got the Coons to double digits, and even Fifield hit one out! Bruno was never in danger in the ninth with a 9-run lead. He didn’t dare to. 11-2 Coons! Sharp 2-4, BB, HR, 3 RBI; Martin 2-5, 2B, RBI; Roberson 2-5, HR, 3 RBI; Gabriel 4-5, RBI; Fifield 2-3, 2 BB, HR, 2 RBI; Farley 6.2 IP, 8 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 3 K, W (4-7); Bruno 1.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 1 K, SV (1);

Well, that was a nice change of pace! We are now back to one game and three runs under .500!

We are still down two key bullpen pieces however, plus our starting second baseman. This should get only more difficult as better teams roll around. Like the Scorpions.

Raccoons (29-30) vs. Scorpions (33-27) – June 7-9, 2002

The Scorpions were scoring well, ranking third in the Federal League, and 39 runs more than the Raccoons (292-253). They also enjoyed the second-best rotation, but their bullpen was covered in flammables and the match was lit and ready to be thrown in.

Projected matchups:
Nick Brown (3-3, 2.60 ERA) vs. Carlos Castro (7-2, 2.54 ERA)
Bob Joly (1-0, 2.45 ERA) vs. Randy Travis (4-5, 5.48 ERA)
Carl Bean (5-6, 3.63 ERA) vs. David Castillo (2-4, 5.56 ERA)

Good news is, the bad part of the rotation comes to town!

Game 1
SAC: CF Ruvalcubu – 1B Heart – LF A. Jenkins – 3B S. Reece – 2B Cowan – C R. Rivera – RF Dubois – SS Davidson – P Castro
POR: 3B Sharp – SS Guerin – CF N. Reece – 1B Martin – LF Roberson – RF Brady – 2B Ingall – C Fifield – P Brown

Two guys had Brown’s number, and that was about enough. In the first and third innings, Lorenzo Ruvalcubu got on base to start the frame, and both times Sonny Reece singled him home. Nobody else was doing a whole lot against Brown, who was throwing lots of strikes, but again got no support. The Coons matched the first run, but didn’t do anything after falling behind again. In the fourth, we had two on and two out when Gil Flores singled into left and Reece was sent around third, but was thrown out by Aaron Jenkins. Max Heart struck out his first two times against Brown, but hit a single in the seventh. Jenkins doubled, and Heart was sent, and Heart was ALSO thrown out. That was Brown’s last batter as he was first due to bat in the bottom 7th and we kinda needed offense. We didn’t get it, though, but instead hit into double plays in both the seventh and eighth. In the ninth, Miller was victimized by poor catching from Fifield. While he did put two men on, Fifield didn’t even make a throw when Ruvalcubu stole second for the second time in the game, then failed to field a Sam Green grounder for the third run to score. Bottom 9th, down by two, we faced Francois Picard, and we got our first two men on when Brady walked and was moved to second by an Ingall single. Fifield struck out, but Matthews hit an RBI single, representing the winning run. Sharp was 0-4 on the day, but Picard was rattled now and walked him on four balls. 3-2, bases loaded, one out for Concie, who turned on the first pitch and shot a grounder to left in the path cut by the earlier Ingall single. Karl Davidson hadn’t gotten Ingall’s, and Guerin’s wasn’t getting nabbed, either. Matthews was waved around, and this time there was plenty of time for the runner to score as the Coons walked off for the second time this week. 4-3 Coons! Guerin 3-5, 2B, 2 RBI; Martin 2-3, BB, RBI; Fifield 2-4; Matthews (PH) 1-1, RBI; Brown 7.0 IP, 9 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 9 K;

Why the heck, you might ask, did Gil Flores bat in the fourth inning? Well, Roberson came up lame in the second, and we suffered our third injury of the week. But this one was not going to cost us beyond batting Gil Flores fifth for seven innings. He knocked up his knee but there was no real damage and the pain was gone the next day, no need to hold him out of Saturday’s game.

Game 2
SAC: CF Ruvalcubu – C Branch – RF Calzado – 3B S. Reece – LF A. Jenkins – 2B Cowan – 1B S. Green – SS Davidson – P Travis
POR: SS Guerin – 1B Ingall – CF N. Reece – LF Roberson – RF Brady – 3B Matthews – C Fernandez – 2B Gabriel – P Joly

No-hitter here, no-hitter there, Bob Joly remained a donkey in a brown shirt. After he fell behind early, a second inning homer by Clyde Brady flipped the score to 2-1 here. Joly struggled, with the Scorpions leaving one man on in the third, and pairs in the next two innings, while the Raccoons were largely silenced by Randy Travis. In the top 6th, Joly blew it up all by himself, walking Vonne Calzado, and then plunking Sonny Reece. Two on, no outs, the Scorpions were going to cash in on that one, with the tying run scoring on a sac fly by Will Cowan. The Coons were blown out in the seventh. Five runs scored between Joly being Joly, Rodriguez walking a pair, and Miller surrendering another home run. In a twist of irony the Raccoons scored two in the bottom 7th, but this game had been properly blown. 8-4 Scorpions. Guerin 2-5; Ingall 2-4, 2B, RBI; Reece 2-4, 2B, RBI;

We get to .500 again, unexpectedly, and the bloke moves begin. As usual, the bullpen.

Game 3
SAC: CF Ruvalcubu – C Branch – RF Calzado – 3B S. Reece – LF A. Jenkins – 1B Dubois – 2B Cowan – SS Davidson – P Castillo
POR: 3B Sharp – SS Guerin – CF N. Reece – 1B Martin – LF Roberson – RF Brady – 2B Ingall – C Fifield – P Bean

If Joly was an annoyance in the middle game, Bean in the rubber game was just a hurricane flattening a seaside orphanage. The seaside orphanage of our dreams, that is. Bean was absolutely horrible, was whacked left and right, not helped the least by the defense, and did not survive the third inning, leaving after a 1-out, 2-run double by Karl Davidson that ramped the score to a staggering 7-0. It was already a blowout, and the eighth run was driven in by Ruvalcubu against Huerta. 8-0, and six innings to pitch, and in the ear still the Broken Chairs from the night before. It was the most devastating experience one could possibly imagine. While Ricardo Huerta did the best he could to absorb damage and protect the rest of the crew, logging 3.2 innings of 1-run ball, the Raccoons hit entirely meaningless home runs in the fourth (Fifield) and sixth (Martin) to get not even back into slam range. After Huerta, we managed to complete the last three innings with three more relievers, of which one did not record any outs and was thus entirely superfluous in the exercise, and I will not name him, but it was a left-hander facing left-handers. No, it was not pretty. 9-4 Scorpions. Martin 3-4, HR, RBI; Brady 2-2, 2 BB; Huerta 3.2 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 2 K; Martinez 1.2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K; Bruno 1.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K;

How deflating! How dispiriting! How disheartening!

In other news

June 3 – 39-year old MIL MR Ricardo Medina, who tore his UCL at the end of the 2001 season, announces that he suffered another setback and has decided to call it a career after Tommy John surgery didn’t bring the desired results. Medina was originally signed by the Titans out of Cuba but within a year dealt to the Falcons for SP Virgil Arnold. He debuted in 1985 and was with the Falcons through ’92 before going on to pitch for the Canadiens, Wolves, Warriors, and Loggers, appearing in 895 games, saving 376 of them, and amassing a 75-72 record, 2.30 ERA, and 1,050 strikeouts. He even started 28 games between 1987 and 1988.
June 6 – DEN OF Pedro Pujols (.361, 7 HR, 48 RBI) has torn a quad and is out until the All Star break.
June 7 – The Loggers acquire 1B/3B/RF Vitantonio Cavalleri (.313, 4 HR, 27 RBI) from the Rebels along with a minor leaguer for the veteran 1B/3B Jose Morales (.333, 0 HR, 8 RBI in 69 AB), who was demoted to AAA recently, but figures to return to the big leagues with the Rebels.
June 7 – The Rebels end CHA C Fernando Chavez’ hitting streak at 24 games.
June 8 – CHA SP Manuel Hernandez (7-2, 2.77 ERA) 2-hits the Rebels and whiffs nine in a 4-0 shutout.

Complaints and stuff

Lorenzo Ruvalcubu went .500 (7-14) with three doubles, a walk, and four stolen bases against us. Thank heavens he’s in that other league! The Raccoons have nobody on fire (except the bullpen in general).

Well, starting a week with two of your key relievers going down is certainly not great. Palacios was also on the DL, but started a rehab stint on the weekend and should rejoin us by mid-week. Manny Gabriel had a 4-hit game, but that’s not going to be enough to stick around. Nobody else has options. Well, except Daniel Sharp. Ha-hah.

Remember that starter I wanted to bring up rather than Joly? Cesar Miranda? Well, there is a hamstring issue which might have us enjoy Bobby Bomfman a few weeks longer while crying ourselves to death.

And it is … man. They went to 15-15 in early May and were gangbanged by the Cyclones, 5-0, 5-0, 6-5. Now they get back to 30-30, and then the Scorpions start to actually try and win, plating 17 over the last two games of that series. And we played the Scorpions four times the last five years, and the record is decidedly unpretty at 2-10.

What else? Neil Reece has a 12-game hitting streak going, dating to before his injury, yet most of the game in there have him with one single. He also hacked out a lot this week. 12 games is nice, but he is still not contributing a lot right now. (Harshest criticism of outfield sweetheart #2 in some years, huh?)

In Milwaukee, GM Leland French officially snapped. Three days after Ricardo Medina announced his retirement, he orchestrated a deal with the Rebels to get back a minor leaguer named … Ricardo Medina. Where can I find a Daniel Hall NOW?

Below is our rule 5 pick. Decent grab, huh?

[Westheim]

Raccoons (30-32) @ Rebels (28-34) – June 10-12, 2002

Tying for most runs given up in the Federal League at 327, the Rebels were struggling with their pitching. They had the distinction to have a more abysmal bullpen than even the Raccoons, besting even our horrendific 4.63 bullpen ERA by four tenths of a run. The rotation was ninth in the FL, which was not an honorary decoration either. Their offense ranked fourth, but couldn’t cover the many, many runs surrendered by the pitching staff.

Projected matchups:
Ralph Ford (7-3, 2.80 ERA) vs. Francisco Garza (4-4, 4.47 ERA)
Randy Farley (4-7, 4.13 ERA) vs. Esteban Flores (9-1, 3.18 ERA)
Nick Brown (3-3, 2.60 ERA) vs. Doug Morrow (4-10, 5.01 ERA)

Oh look, Esteban Flores, who was 2-14 for the Raccoons between 1997 and 1999, CAN actually win games if he wants to!

We have not won a series against the Rebels since 1993.

Game 1
POR: 3B Sharp – RF Brady – CF Reece – 1B Martin – SS Guerin – LF Parker – 2B Gabriel – C Fifield – P Ford
RIC: RF J. Garcia – C Valadez – 3B A. Gonzalez – LF Hartley – 1B J. Morales – CF Kaberman – 2B Stein – SS Williamson – P F. Garza

The Raccoons’ usage of RISP chances in the series opener was shockingly bad. They got one run with a 2-out double by Fifield in the second inning, left two on, and left two pairs and one trio of runners on from there through the sixth, many reaching on walks by a wonky Garza. Ford had one scary inning, the bottom 5th, where the Rebels had runners on the corners with one out, but were retired on a K to Morales and a fast bouncer to Guerin that Concie managed to zing back to first to nip Kaberman and keep the Rebels from scoring. The bottom 6th, Ford allowed a leadoff single to Garcia, then walked Valadez. Dumb luck gave him consecutive pop outs before he also walked Morales, only to have Kaberman fly out to Brady, who had to stretch a bit to get it. The Coons’ sloppy play couldn’t work out forever, and it didn’t. Doubles by Jim Stein and Emery Parkinson in the seventh blew that shady 1-0 lead, and a Parker error put runners on the corners with one out. Ford’s ship was sinking, and Manuel Martinez hacked another hole into it beneath the waterline, with Ricardo Valadez’ single to left giving the Rebels the lead. Diaz gave up another run in the eighth. In the ninth we faced Leon Walker, who was not necessarily a picture perfect closer, walking five per nine innings. He walked Sharp, Brady singled, and Reece also walked – and there were no outs. And all of a sudden Walker DID look like a closer. Martin grounded out. Guerin popped out. Parker - … well. 3-2 Rebels. Brady 2-4, BB; Ford 6.1 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 4 K, L (7-4);

13 men left on base. You just want to kill the suckers. You just want to kill the ****ing suckers.

Game 2
POR: 3B Sharp – SS Guerin – CF Reece – 1B Martin – LF Roberson – RF Brady – 2B Ingall – C Fernandez – P Farley
RIC: CF F. Vasquez – C C. Ramos – 2B F. Rivera – RF J. Garcia – SS Stein – LF Kaberman – 3B J. Morales – 1B O. Rios – P E. Flores

The auto-loss guy had won his last three games, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t the auto-loss guy anymore. This middle game was about as sure an auto-loss as it can get as soon as it began. Vasquez singled square through Martin, and Farley walked the next three batters, and didn’t retire anybody among the first six batters. The Rebels put up an effortless 5-spot. The amazing thing was that while Farley kept pitching to suck up his own stew, the Raccoons made a run for it to creep back into the game. They got a run in the third, two in the fourth, and one in the fifth, clawing themselves back to a 1-run deficit, and THEN Farley put the first two batters in the fifth on base. Those headaches, never going to go away again! Rodriguez replaced him to face Jim Stein, who lined out to Ingall, and then Miller appeared against Kaberman, threw one pitch, and Kaberman turned that into two outs, also to Ingall. Ingall singled then to lead off the top 6th. Fernandez for a nice change got on base with a walk, Miller bunted, and again nobody could muster another base hit, the Raccoons being held to a run-scoring groundout by Sharp when it counted. That still took Farley off the hook. Miller pitched another two innings without a base runner appearing for the Rebels, but was not rewarded with something outrageous like the go-ahead run scoring for him to get a W, perhaps. No, no. Instead, Huerta took the loss in the bottom 8th when Julio Garcia reached on an infield single and Kaberman doubled him in. The Raccoons stranded a pair in the top 9th. 6-5 Rebels. Guerin 2-4, RBI; Brady 2-4, BB; Ingall 2-5, RBI; Miller 2.2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K;

The undescribable agony.

With this **** loss of a game, the Raccoons abandoned all hope of ever having a winning record again. Also, Neil Reece abandoned his hitting streak at 13 games, reaching base on getting plunked and a walk, but never had a resounding at-bat in the game.

Game 3
POR: 3B Sharp – SS Guerin – 1B Martin – LF Roberson – RF Brady – CF Reece – 2B Ingall – C Fifield – P Brown
RIC: RF J. Garcia – C Valadez – 2B F. Rivera – 3B A. Gonzalez – LF Hartley – 1B J. Morales – CF Kaberman – SS Williamson – P Morrow

Farley had walked three in the first inning on Tuesday, Brown walked three in the first on Wednesday. The difference was that Brown only allowed one hit, but the Rebels still took a 2-0 lead. And things were as they were. The Raccoons put men on, ****ed up every possible chance they got, however, and when Martin drew a bases-loaded walk in the fifth inning, two down, Roberson sure enough casually grounded to short to leave another three men on. Reece had killed a chance the previous inning hitting into a double play, and it had been the same tune for the whole series. Nick Brown didn’t issue another walk, but struck out five, yet also hit two batters, including a smack into Julio Garcia’s wrist that forced the rightfielder out of the game, and it didn’t look pretty. Brown left on the short end of a 2-1 score, that grew ever shorter through the innings as the Raccoons flunked out of every sliver of a chance they got, like another mind- and soul-killing double play hit into by Guerin in the seventh. They didn’t get the ball out of the infield at all the last FOUR innings. 2-1 Rebels. Martin 2-3, BB, RBI; Joly 2.2 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K;

Mind-killing, soul-killing … pseudo-bear killjoys…

Raccoons (30-35) @ Loggers (38-28) – June 14-16, 2002

After going to 30-30, the Raccoons had lost five in a row, all more or less stupendously gut-wrenching, and now they faced a team that had rallied from the bottoms of their own division in late April to get up to within 2.5 games of the division lead, and still shortening that gap on the Titans. Hel-lo, 8-game drought! They had the next-worst bullpen in the CL (to the Raccoons, in case you had been absent for two and a half months), but made up for it with the rest of their roster being quite solid.

The draft will be on Saturday, rudely cutting into this series. [Which is also the reason for no update yesterday]

Projected matchups:
Carl Bean (5-7, 4.36 ERA) vs. Martin Garcia (5-5, 2.96 ERA)
Ralph Ford (7-4, 2.70 ERA) vs. John Miller (9-4, 3.02 ERA)
Randy Farley (4-7, 4.46 ERA) vs. Marc Padgett (4-4, 4.37 ERA)

Game 1
POR: 3B Sharp – SS Guerin – CF Reece – 1B Martin – LF Roberson – 2B Ingall – C Fifield – RF Flores – P Bean
MIL: SS B. Hernandez – C L. Ramirez – LF Hiwalani – 2B J. Cruz – RF C. Ramirez – CF Fletcher – 1B Costello – 3B Cavalleri – P M. Garcia

The defense tried, the offense not so much. Daniel Sharp turned an amazing inning-ending double play in the bottom 2nd to keep the game tied at nothing, but when the Raccoons got their scoring chance served on a silver platter by Bartolo Hernandez in the fourth, a bad throw on a grounder by Ingall that gave the Coons runners on the corners with two out, Fifield was whiffed on three pitches by the two-time Triple Crown winner Garcia. The Loggers broke through in the bottom of the same inning with RBI hits by Cristo Ramirez and Jerry Fletcher, and while the Raccoons got a run back in the fifth, that 2-1 deficit was towering tall. Top 8th, Garcia still in the 2-1 game, he walked Sharp up front in the inning. Guerin singled between Cavalleri and Hernandez, and suddenly the Raccoons were in business. Reece’s single loaded them up with no outs. Oh, here it comes! Or maybe not. Martin popped out, and Roberson lined into a double play, Guerin caught astray. Bean was still pitching, allowing a leadoff double to Jose Nava in the bottom 8th. One out, Nava was at third, and Leon Ramirez’ pop to left was dropped by Roberson, and you bet your fur that the Raccoons imploded instantly. Bean was bludgeoned for a 2-run homer by Jorge Cruz, walked Cristo Ramirez, and Miller came in to allow a pair of doubles. Fifield hit a ****ing 2-run homer in the ninth, as the miserable miscarriages even put the tying runs on base in an inning that became enough of a nuisance for the Loggers to have their closer Robbie Wills molested, with the Raccoons scoring 2-out runs on a Martin walk and a Roberson infield single, but that ended as soon as Chris Parker grabbed a bat. 8-5 Loggers. Guerin 2-4, BB; Roberson 2-5, 2B, RBI; Brady (PH) 1-1;

The miserable miscarriages ran their losing streak to six, and had a chance to hit the bottom of the division on Saturday, which was the first game with Jesus Palacios back in the lineup. Manny Gabriel was disposed of.

Game 2
POR: 3B Sharp – 2B Palacios – CF Reece – 1B Martin – RF Brady – LF Roberson – SS Guerin – C Fifield – P Ford
MIL: 2B B. Hernandez – RF C. Ramirez – LF Hiwalani – 1B J. Cruz – C L. Ramirez – CF Fletcher – 3B Cavalleri – SS Costello – P J. Miller

Before the game, Ralph Ford noticed that he had left his wallet in the hotel room and now couldn’t buy a crusty snack from the vending machines in the Loggers’ visitors’ clubhouse. Unfortunately the same was true for his command: he didn’t have it with him. Fortunately for him, John Miller had his own struggles. The first two Coons in the second inning reached, leading to a run eventually, and the next inning, Ford led off with a double, Sharp walked, and Palacios’ second AB back from injury was a 3-run homer. Ford needed 96 pitches for five scoreless innings, walking and whiffing five each, and allowing two hits to Hernandez. Leon Ramirez’ leadoff single in the bottom 6th got him removed, and somehow Vega and Daniel Miller stumbled through the next two innings. In the bottom 8th Bob Joly did a princely job of blowing the shutout, hitting Hiwalani, allowing an RBI double to Cruz, balking him over, and falling to an RBI groundout by Fletcher that cut our lead in half. Pedro Costello’s capital throwing error put Concie on second base in the top 9th with no outs, before a parade consisting of Ingall, Flores, and Sharp produced two pop outs separated by a pathetic hopper. Costello led off the bottom 9th batting against Bruno, popped out, but Taisuke Mashiba drew a walk. That was all the Loggers got, however, as Hernandez and Ramirez both made outs. 4-2 Raccoons. Palacios 2-4, HR, 3 RBI; Martin 2-4, 2B; Brady 2-4, 2B;

That gave us a bounce back into third spot in the CL North, 1 1/2 games above the Indians-occupied cellar. Not that there was much to gain or lose between third and sixth anyway. Our dignity is mostly gone. The only way the Raccoons can make it worse would be by adding pink feather boas to their uniforms.

Don’t let Maud hear that. She’d to it, if only to attract female fans to the park.

Wait. We have fans?

Game 3
POR: 3B Sharp – 2B Palacios – CF Reece – 1B Martin – RF Brady – LF Roberson – SS Guerin – C Fifield – P Farley
MIL: SS B. Hernandez – 1B Nava – LF Hiwalani – RF C. Ramirez – CF Fletcher – C L. Ramirez – 2B Costello – 3B Cavalleri – P Padgett

Neither starter was any good. The Raccoons took a 1-0 lead in the first inning, Martin doubling in Reece, and the Coons left four runners on base from there through the third inning. Farley was only saved by two double plays, including one with the bags full, one out, and Hiwalani batting. Farley couldn’t get ahead of batters at all after striking out a pair in the second. In the fourth, Cristo Ramirez was 3-0 leading off, then swung and grounded out. Fletcher and Leon Ramirez were both 2-1 ahead when they lined out. Offensively the Coons continued to get on and stay on. When Brady and Roberson led off the sixth with singles and went to the corners, they had nine hits to their lone run. Even Padgett felt sorry and wild pitched Brady across, 2-0. Roberson scored on a sacrifice by Fifield eventually, and the next inning the bags were full with Brownshirts when Brady batted with one out, and grounded to Costello. Four to six to three, and the tie went to the runner, giving the Raccoons an extra run as Sharp came across and scored. Now with a 4-run lead, Farley wobbled along, but two tricklers between fielders created a jam in the eighth. Nava popped out, but that still brought up Hiwalani with two out. Walking him intentionally was not an option with the lefty Ramirez behind, and our left-handed relief… Hiwalani had struck out in his last AB against Farley, and sought revenge – and that cost him as he struck out on five pitches. Farley remained in for the ninth, which was ultimately a mistake, since he didn’t retire anybody, and when Marcos Bruno appeared, the Loggers had Cristo Ramirez and Jerry Fletcher already in scoring position. But Bruno held on, holding the damage to a Leon Ramirez sac fly. 4-1 Raccoons! Palacios 3-5; Reece 2-5; Martin 2-4, 2B, RBI; Guerin 2-4, 2B; Farley 8.0 IP, 9 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 4 K, W (5-7);

A nice and unexpected turnaround here. I was fully expecting the streak spilling over into next week. Or September.

In other news

June 14 – Career home run king TIJ LF/RF Raúl Vázquez (275, 9 HR, 21 RBI) is out for the season with a torn labrum. Vázquez’ 373 career home runs lead second place Michael Root by 35, and the closest active player, Anibal Rodriguez, by 55.
June 14 – New York’s SP Edgar Rey (4-6, 4.04 ERA) 2-hits the Canadiens in a 3-0 shutout.

Complaints and stuff

A day after the Coons beat him, the Loggers suddenly received John Miller’s signed contract offer. He knew he had to act quickly after that shameful disgrace of losing to the Trash Can Bandits. He will make $6.56M over the next four years.

Albert Martin is third in average and home runs right now, but the gap in dingers is especially sizeable. Both IND Ron Alston and VAN Ivan Gutierrez have 21 shots already! We are not even at half time for this season, so Raúl Vázquez’ single season record of 42 may be in danger.

Edgardo Torrez came off the DL on Monday and rejoined the AAA team. Still trying to figure out my outfield…

Yeah, outfielders. It was getting choked in the outfield in AAA. We have a 23-year old Jesus Valle making a cause for himself now, and it was time to lighten the congestion. We made two moves on the weekend, with a trade being orchestrated that sent failed 1998 supplemental round pick Herb Rose, now 26, to the Aces for a 20-year old non-prospect SP Gilberto Pereira. The Aces had him at AAA, but we put him back at AA. His AAA ERA was … not pretty (10+).

We also released 1995 eighth-rounder Jason Kent, 28. He was .243/.312/.332 in 325 AB for the Raccoons across five seasons. He was still sucking up money, but he’s now somewhere around 10th on our outfield depth chart.

Right now, we are $500k overbudget (precisely almost). Like I know our accountant, he will manage to find a few bucks he lost over the course of the seasons by the time we hit September. We might come out at zero after all.

Would much rather like to come out at .500, however.

[Westheim]

2002 AMATEUR DRAFT

The Raccoons had the seventh pick in every round in the 2002 draft, but no supplemental round picks, and to be precise no compensation picks of any kind.

Vince had carefully prepared a shortlist of 73 players to have potential of some sort or other, with the following on the shorter shortlist (shorterlist?):

SP Bob Bowden (11/14/10)

RP Helio Maggessi (20/16/14)
RP Tommy Wooldridge (18/15/12)
RP Adam Riddle (18/11/11)
RP Jason Long (15/14/13)

C Rodney Gibson (19/5/20)
C Aaron Case (12/19/13)

SS Ieyoshi Nomura (20/6/16)
INF/LF Dave McCormick (16/13/9)
1B/3B Pedro Reyes (13/12/14)

LF/RF Stanton Martin (16/16/7)
LF/RF Rodrigo Lopez (16/8/16)
RF/LF Clint Phillip (10/16/13)
OF Orlando Sanchez (11/12/12)

With the first overall pick, the Pacifics selected SP Brad Smith. Brad who? Vince. Who? Where is he on our list? He’s not …? He’s not on our list?

Well, the next players were on our list for sure. With the next picks, Stanton Martin (Crusaders), Rodrigo Lopez (Knights), and Bob Bowden (Aces) went off the board. The Canadiens took SP Scott Spears, before the Capitals picked up Aaron Case. That narrowed down our choices a bit. I was bothered by the fact that Rodney Gibson didn’t show up *anywhere* on the BNN and OSA reports. We were inclined to take Tommy Wooldridge in the first round – and if he had been a left-hander, I would have done it. But he was a right-hander, and I made a different choice, the effects of which might not be seen for years, or maybe soon, depending on how Ieyoshi Nomura would bat in A ball in his age 18 season.

Wooldridge went 14th overall to the Scorpions, Maggessi 16th to the Indians, Reyes 18th to the Stars, Phillip 21st to the Loggers, McCormick 22nd to the Scorpions, and only ONE of the players on the shorterlist lingered until the Raccoons had their next pick. The next four players were all from the shortlist, before Vince started making the picks because I was bored by all the non-potential.

2002 PORTLAND RACCOONS DRAFT CLASS
Round 1 (#7) – SS Ieyoshi Nomura, 18, from Maebashi, Japan – excellent ability to reach base, with a knack for hitting doubles; hardly strikes out; not very fleet in the field, and he might not be best put at shortstop after all
Round 2 (#64) – MR Adam Riddle, 20, from Barnstable Town, MS – 97mph fastball and a changeup for this promising right-hander
Round 3 (#88) – LF Joe Spivey, 22, from Iselin, NJ – claims to play all three outfield positions well, which Vince does not confirm; solid contact bat, but not much power
Round 4 (#112) – MR Tony Rodriguez, 18, from Maracaibo, Venezuela – left-hander, throws a screwball that if it would screw properly wouldn’t be taken for a lot of yardage so often
Round 5 (#136) – OF Mathew Page, 18, from Groveton, VA – while he can actually play all three outfield positions and a pair of quick legs, he can’t bat a lot, with no power at all
Round 6 (#160) – 1B Gilbert Eldridge, 18, from Fresno, CA – prototypical first baseman, just not very good at it
Round 7 (#184) – MR Sadahige Nakano, 17, from Kanazawa, Japan – righty working on a slider, not exceeding 90mph on his fastball
Round 8 (#208) – 1B Leonard Wyatt, 19, from Blue Ash, OH – another prototypical first baseman, even worse at it
Round 9 (#232) – INF Tom Ingram, 20, from Camden, NJ – adept with the glove, has yet to swing a bat in anger
Round 10 (#256) – C/1B Victor Petersen, 22, from Selma, AL – not much to see here, neither offensively, nor defensively
Round 11 (#280) – OF Melvin Webb, 18, from Camp Swift, TX – nice range and glove, great speed; if there just wasn’t that get-on-base issue…
Round 12 (#304) – MR Cesar Cuevas, 21, from Maracaibo, Venezuela – well… he’s a left-hander, that was good enough in the last round

Not thrilled with this draft. Besides Riddle, there is nobody where you can be 90%+ sure that they will make it to the majors. 18-year olds are always hit-and-miss (sometimes hit-and-run), and we might well have drafted nothing at all. At least we spent just a bit over $1M on the draft, of which $620k alone went to Nomura.

No picks were assigned higher than A ball.

[Westheim]

Raccoons (32-36) vs. Indians (31-38) – June 17-19, 2002

An all around abysmal team – the Indians! – had given up a league-leading 356 runs, almost 5.2 per game, while not scoring much at all in return, ranking 10th with 281 runs scored. They DID have an excellent bullpen, but at one point a rotation becomes so horrendous that no bullpen in the world can save them anymore.

Projected matchups:
Nick Brown (3-4, 2.65 ERA) vs. John Collins (3-2, 4.08 ERA)
Bob Joly (1-1, 3.28 ERA) vs. Kevin Edwards (0-6, 6.58 ERA)
Carl Bean (5-8, 4.20 ERA) vs. Ramón Jimenez (3-7, 6.36 ERA)

More right-handers. And can we get some love for our wunderkind now? His run support has Saito-esque proportions: 13 runs in the last five games, of which he has not won any. His last win was exactly one month ago, when he pitched seven shutout innings, whiffing nine, in a 13-0 drubbing of the Condors. You win some, you lose twice as many? Get those bats moving!!

Game 1
IND: 3B Montray – SS M. Jones – LF Alston – 1B D. Lopez – RF Greenman – CF J. Valdez – C T. Turner – 2B Stevens – P J. Collins
POR: 3B Sharp – 2B Palacios – CF Reece – 1B Martin – LF Roberson – RF Brady – SS Guerin – C Fernandez – P Brown

We might have had the CL home run leader in Ron Alston visiting, but for starters the third place slugger did some catching up with Albert Martin firing a towering shot off John Collins in the first to give Brown a 2-0 lead. It didn’t take long for Brown to get tagged as well, though, with Christian Greenman doing the honors with a solo home run in the top 2nd. The Coons got that run back in the bottom 2nd after Art Stevens had struck out on a caught foul tip to end the top 2nd for Nicky’s 100th strikeout of the year, and he set a torrid pace for strikeouts, reaching eight in five innings on 74 pitches. The Coons offensively had a few long flies snagged, but got a run in the bottom 5th with a bases-loaded 2-out single by Concie. Fernandez then flew to the warning track for the final out. Brown didn’t get a K in the sixth, but punched out Alston for the third time on the day in the seventh … then began to lose control. David Lopez worked a walk before Greenman struck out in a full count for #10. Valdez was ahead 3-0 before he grounded out to Guerin to end the inning. A leadoff jack in the bottom 7th gave Neil Reece his first RBI since returning from the DL, making it 5-1. Brown lost it for good in the top 8th, issuing consecutive 2-out walks to Jose Lugo and Phil Montray, two lefties. Juan Diaz relieved him, getting a grounder from Mike Jones that Martin almost misfielded, but Jones was called out on a bam-bam play. Manuel Martinez was perfect in the ninth, which included awarding Ron Alston a golden sombrero. 5-1 Browns! Errrr- Coons! Palacios 1-2, BB, RBI; Brady 2-4; Brown 7.2 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 5 BB, 10 K, W (4-4) and 2-3;

Yesss! Brown Power! Well, he occasionally *does* show that ‘6’ command. Vince actually rates him 20/12/7 with a potential 20/13/10 now. For what it is worth, he is on pace for 249 K right now. In the here and now, Halawa’s Finest was eight whiffs off Tony Hamlyn for the CL lead, which also amounted to second overall in the ABL, since the FL leader Carlos Castro of the Gold Sox had five less than Nicky.

Game 2
IND: 2B Montray – 1B J. Garcia – LF Alston – 3B D. Lopez – C Paraz – CF Cavazos – SS Stevens – RF J. Lugo – P K. Edwards
POR: 3B Sharp – 2B Palacios – RF Brady – 1B Martin – CF Roberson – SS Guerin – C Fifield – LF Parker – P Joly

A nasty trend continued in which the Raccoons were unable to pounce on a guy with an ERA north of six. While they scored first when Sharp doubled home Parker in the third inning, Martin ended the inning with runners on the corners and a particularly sad strikeout. The Indians struck back right in the top 4th, putting their first three men on and scoring two runs off Joly. That was pretty much it for offense for another hour or so, before Chris Parker hit a 1-out double in the bottom 7th. Reece hit for Joly, but grounded out, and Sharp’s fly to deep center was caught by Cavazos more easy than we’d like to see. Greenman caught Brady’s fly to deep left in the eighth, making Martin’s following 2-out double ultimately moot, and in the ninth the tying run got on base on a 1-out walk that Ingall drew in Fifield’s spot against Jared Chaney. Chris “Instant Death of Offense” fouled out, leaving it to Matthews to set things right. His grounder somehow went through Art Stevens at second base, and Ingall made it to third base. Now, Daniel Sharp. Dan-ny! Dan-ny! And Chaney struck him out. 2-1 Indians. Matthews (PH) 1-1; Rodriguez 1.1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K;

(sigh)

Game 3
IND: 2B Montray – SS M. Jones – LF Alston – 3B D. Lopez – C Paraz – CF Cavazos – 1B J. Garcia – RF J. Lugo – P Jimenez
POR: 3B Sharp – 2B Palacios – CF Reece – 1B Martin – RF Brady – SS Ingall – LF Parker – C Fernandez – P Bean

Bean was bad and surrendered two runs in the second inning (after being rescued by great plays by Ingall AND Martin in the first). The Coons had Brady walk and Ingall double in the bottom 2nd, no outs, then a ginger fly by Parker for a sacrifice and their first run before Fernandez and Bean both were swooshed back to the dugout by Jimenez, who was the epitome of “can’t whiff this”. It didn’t get MUCH better. Palacios hit a single in the third, and was doubled in by Reece. Martin singled, but Reece had to hold, and then Brady zinged into an inning-ending double play to keep the game tied at two. Jimenez still lingered, but the breakthrough DID come this time, and it was in the fourth. Starting with an Ingall single, the Coons had two on for Bean with one out, and he lobbed a soft line over the jumping Mike Jones to score Ingall from second base for the go-ahead run on an RBI single. Sharp hit a single that loaded the bases, leading up to Palacios stepping in and violently breaking the score open with a four-bagger: GRAAAAAAND SLAAAAAAMMM!!! It wasn’t the end of the offense for Portland, with the Indians trying to get length from lefty Jack Hamilton, which didn’t quite work, and three more runs scored against him – all on a bases-loaded walk or wild pitches. Bean didn’t get past the sixth in what was pretty much the only major fault in the box score. 11-3 Coons! Palacios 3-5, HR, 4 RBI; Reece 2-4, BB, 2B, RBI; Martin 2-4, 3B, RBI; Ingall 2-5, 2B; Fernandez 2-4, RBI; Miller 2.0 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 0 K;

It’s like Nick Brown getting 13 runs in one game, then 13 runs total over the next five games. You couldn’t have split the 14 runs in the last two games evenly, couldn’t you?

Dan Nordahl returned from the DL after this series, replacing Sergio Vega.

Raccoons (34-37) @ Aces (33-40) – June 21-23, 2002

The Aces had just left the deepest depths, carrying with them a 10-game winning streak! They were 7th in offense and 9th in defense, and combined with their record you’d figure that they were about where they should be, record wise, right now, and that the Raccoons might have a chance to win the series despite their recent success.

Projected matchups:
Ralph Ford (8-4, 2.56 ERA) vs. Tommy Wilson (8-4, 2.66 ERA)
Randy Farley (5-7, 4.18 ERA) vs. Alfredo Rios (6-8, 4.37 ERA)
Nick Brown (4-4, 2.53 ERA) vs. Donald Stone (4-6, 4.95 ERA)

And that will mean the Raccoons have another week where they only face right-handers.

Game 1
POR: SS Guerin – 2B Palacios – CF Reece – 1B Martin – LF Roberson – RF Brady – 3B Ingall – C Fifield – P Ford
LVA: CF Talamante – C De La Parra – 2B O. Torres – LF L. Jenkins – 1B J. Vargas – SS Hitchcock – RF Mendoza – 3B Bell – P T. Wilson

Neither pitcher allowed a hit through three innings, with Tommy Wilson being perfect, whiffing four, while Ford whiffed five against a walk. Neither team got a hit in the fourth, but the Raccoons got a run, Concie reaching on an error by Lance Hitchcock, stealing second base, and scoring on an even bigger error by Oliver Torres. Clyde Brady’s leadoff single in the fifth was the first entry into the H column all day. Fifield would cash in with a 2-run homer to make it 3-0 Coons. Palacios would open the score by doubling it with a 3-run homer in the eighth inning. Since then, the Aces had only reached once on an Ingall error. Al Martin was replaced for defense after the top 8th. It didn’t help: Lance Hitchcock led off the inning with a double just shy of the centerfield wall. A younger Neil Reece might have made a play, but Neil was 35, and Ford’s no-hit bid fell six outs short. However, this was the Aces’ last base runner. Ford violently slammed the door shut on them, ending the game with a strikeout to Oliver Torres. 6-0 Raccoons! Palacios 1-4, HR, 4 RBI; Fifield 2-3, HR, 2 RBI; Ford 9.0 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 11 K, W (9-4);

Ralphie!! This was his second career complete game as well as his second shutout, the other time he achieved this was last year, when he spilled five hits against the Indians on July 18.

Naughty Lance Hitchcock, though. I tried to trade for him a few years back, but can’t remember in which context. Must have been a few years, possibly before the emergence of Concie?

Game 2
POR: SS Guerin – 2B Palacios – CF Reece – 1B Martin – 3B Sharp – RF Brady – C Fifield – LF Flores – P Farley
LVA: CF Talamante – 1B J. Vargas – 2B O. Torres – RF L. Jenkins – LF McCormick – C De La Parra – SS Hitchcock – 3B Combes – P A. Rios

For the second time this week, Al Martin smacked a 2-run homer in the first inning to give the Coons an early lead. The Coons would add runs on RBI doubles by Palacios in the third and Reece in the fifth, getting to 4-0, while Farley was quietly milling about in the bottom halves of the innings, not really getting into trouble until the sixth, and then the trouble was quite big. That inning, both Talamante and Vargas led off with a pair of singles. Torres struck out, but when Jenkins dropped down a bunt, Fifield bungled it long enough to have everybody safe. Three on, one out, the most dangerous batter of theirs up in Wes McCormick, a lefty with 13 homers, and no trust in our left-handed relief. Farley kept pitching, and it was a mistake, McCormick shooting a liner into the left field corners to plate two runs, and the Raccoons only escaped when Guerin made an impossible play on Antonio De La Parra’s line drive and beat McCormick back to second base. Farley ended up getting bombed by Bernard Combes the next inning and left with a slim 4-3 lead after 6.1 innings. Martinez came in, but the lead was blown when Guerin made an error that put PH Dick Bell on second base and Vargas singled through Sharp with two outs. Ian Johnson, one of the best left-handers in the game, pitched two innings, and while the Coons got two on base in the ninth, they couldn’t score. In the 4-4 game in the bottom 9th, Fifield made his SECOND unnecessary error, throwing Luis Paredes’ grounder past Martin with one out, putting Marcos Bruno into a terrible hole. But he did get out of said hole, popping up Talamante and whiffing Vargas to send the contest to extras. Terminally inept Charlie Deacon pitched for the Aces in the top 10th, issuing a walk to Neil Reece as his first batter, but Martin hit a perfect double play grounder and the Coons didn’t score. In the bottom 10th, we faced three left-handers, and so went to Diaz. We might just as well have gone to Slappy. Or Chad, for what it was worth. 5-4 Aces. Guerin 2-5, 3B; Palacios 3-5, 2B, RBI; Roberson 1-1; Farley 6.1 IP, 7 H, 3 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 7 K; Bruno 1.1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K;

Well, this was a terrible mood killer. Only Combes’ homer and Diaz’ failing were earned runs, the others were on Fifield and Guerin. The Aces had nothing going, and we took every opportunity to GET them going. Very frustrating experience.

For the Sunday game, we switched catchers again. Mark Thomas had batted .400 in 60 AB in AAA, while Fernandez was … well, his AAA and ML averages COMBINED weren’t amounting to .400 …

Game 3
POR: SS Guerin – 2B Palacios – CF Reece – 1B Martin – LF Roberson – RF Brady – 3B Ingall – C Thomas – P Brown
LVA: CF Talamante – C De La Parra – 2B O. Torres – LF L. Jenkins – 1B J. Vargas – SS Hitchcock – RF Mendoza – 3B Bell – P Stone

Somehow, whenever Nicky doesn’t have it, you notice it quickly. While he struck out Talamante to start the game, he soon ran into trouble … and shame. With runners on the corners and two outs in the bottom 2nd, Stone beat out a grounder for an infield single, and Talamante doubled in another run to make it 2-0 for the home team. Donald Stone would have been perfect the first time through the Raccoons’ lineup if not for a Javier Vargas error, which nothing came out of, however. The game was over by the third, Brown walking the left-handers Torres and Jenkins before Vargas tattooed him to make it 5-0. The Coons’ hitting remained ugly against Stone, as they left runners on third base in both the fourth and fifth innings, before Brady finally brought home a single run in the sixth with a 2-out RBI single. It was too late for Brown, however, who left after five plus with a leadoff walk to Orlando Mendoza. Daniel Miller retired the next three men in order to keep the run off Brown’s ledger. The Coons did get another chance, though. A leadoff walk to Palacios in the eighth, with the runner moving up on Reece’s groundout, led to the Aces calling for the intentional walk to Martin before bringing the lefty Johnson, which was a strange move, to be honest. Roberson beat out a grounder to create bases loaded with one out, and we longed for a right-handed bat here. Matthews was picked over an ice cold Sharp or even Flores. After he saw a ball, he turned onto the second pitch and drilled a line drive up the right field line, that not only stayed fair, but also turned into foul ground after bouncing fair and caromed funnily off the wall to fool Mendoza and turn this into a bases-clearing triple! Out of the blue, the Raccoons had the tying run at third with one out! And there the beauty ended. Ingall grounded out to third, and Thomas flew to deep left, but Jenkins shagged it. Raccoons lost. 5-4 Aces. Matthews (PH) 1-1, 3B, 3 RBI;

(bangs head onto the desk repeatedly)

In other news

June 18 – VAN RF/LF Tony Velasquez (.294, 4 HR, 18 RBI) will miss time until the All Star Game with a torn hamstring.
June 19 – The Crusaders add C Daryl Anderson (.221, 0 HR, 7 RBI) from the Gold Sox for OF Ricardo Chavez (.250, 0 HR, 5 RBI). Neither player has logged more than 65 AB this season.
June 20 – Next 20-game hitting streak, with CIN LF/RF Dan Morris (.345, 19 HR, 55 RBI) reaching the mark with two hits, including a home run, in a 7-5 loss of the Cyclones to the Capitals.
June 22 – David Brooks jr. inherits the Nashville Blue Sox at the death of his father in the wee morning hours. The younger Brooks, a successful businessman, is said to be tight with money, but accepting in difficult times.
June 23 – While the Cyclones trash the Scorpions, 15-5, the Scorpions still stop Dan Morris, who goes 0-4 and has his 22-game hitting streak snapped.

Complaints and stuff

More or less fresh off the DL, Jesus Palacios was named Continental League Player of the Week, batting .500 (12-24) with 2 HR and 10 RBI.

Is it time to put up a Brown Corner in the ballpark? One where people can wear silly hats and hang up cardboard K’s whenever Nicky has touched a batter the naughty way?

Before we get TOO excited over Ralph Ford’s excellent season, his BABIP is .257, so defense has a word in his numbers. F.e. Brown’s is .304. Brown also gets whacked tremendously from time to time. One start to the next, the most terrible things will happen to him. We will chalk that up to rookie struggles and move on casually, whistling a nervous tune.

By the way, the last two losses to the Aces were really dispiriting. And I use that word a lot, but it is true.

A particular annoyance I discovered this week is that not only do the Gold Sox have a starting pitcher named Carlos Castro, but so do the Scorpions. They are both from Santo Domingo. The Sock is 29 and a throws left-handed, the Stinging Beast is 25 and a righty. The Sock also has some overbite that could benefit from orthodontic treatment.

Kevin Jones, our left-handed reliever for like five minutes this April, is on waivers by the Falcons. He’s posting a 6.89 ERA there. That’s JUST over half his ERA as a Furball, though.

And if anybody wants another autograph of Gil Flores (for whatever reason) they should hurry up because he won’t be on here much longer. Chris Beairsto is doing well with the Alley Cats, apart from a K rate exceeding 25%. Who’s doing REALLY well is Edgardo Torrez, and he might appear here during the next week. With us playing 14 more games until the All Star Break we will even have fantastic excuses to use him regularly over our regulars. AAA numbers coming:
Edgardo Torrez: .297/.415/.494 with 5 HR, 15 RBI in 101 AB (was injured for some time)
Chris Beairsto: .257/.325/.494 with 16 HR, 47 RBI in 261 AB (yet, 70 K in there)
Also, Beairsto is not on the 40-man roster, so why bring him up now? Makes no sense.

Trivia #1: Which Raccoon appeared in the most games without ever scoring a run?
Grant West (905 games)

Trivia #2: Which current Raccoon has the highest slugging percentage while playing for the franchise?
Dan Nordahl (1.143)

Trivia #3: (rolls eyes) Which current Raccoons position player has the highest slugging percentage while playing for the franchise?
Chris Roberson (.496)

Reader involvement time! Chris Roberson’s slugging mark leads ALL Raccoons position players past and present, except ONE, and it is neither Tetsu Osanai, nor Daniel Hall, nor some guy with a handful of AB. The player in question had more than 1,000 AB for the Raccoons. Who is it?

[rjl518]

cmon man...lets get those black masks to the top...lets go RACS!!!

oh...any chance of you going to ootp16?

[xepicx2729]

just finished reading the whole thread and HOLY CRAP. dunno how you lasted (and didn't quit) this long with all of the first round busts in early years. the amount of dedication you have for this is great, and i thank you for writing it!

[Questdog]

Originally Posted by Westheim

Reader involvement time! Chris Roberson’s slugging mark leads ALL Raccoons position players past and present, except ONE, and it is neither Tetsu Osanai, nor Daniel Hall, nor some guy with a handful of AB. The player in question had more than 1,000 AB for the Raccoons. Who is it?

I think I know who it must be, but I cannot think of his name to save my life and I cannot locate him in past pages. An outfielder that we signed as a free agent and played awesome and then got hurt and missed half a season......

[Westheim]

Originally Posted by xepicx2729

just finished reading the whole thread and HOLY CRAP. dunno how you lasted (and didn't quit) this long with all of the first round busts in early years. the amount of dedication you have for this is great, and i thank you for writing it!

Thank you for enduring three real time years of whining!

In case of permanent emotional or brain damage please contact our law department. Slappy and Chad will kindly take care of your problems unless they're drunk, or high.

Originally Posted by rjl518

oh...any chance of you going to ootp16?

I don't think so. I am too scared of breaking something.

Should I die tomorrow, I will leave nothing but €223.15 in my bank account, two boxes of cookies, and the Raccoons, so they are pretty high up there in relevance for me.*

Originally Posted by Questdog

I think I know who it must be, but I cannot think of his name to save my life and I cannot locate him in past pages. An outfielder that we signed as a free agent and played awesome and then got hurt and missed half a season......

I think you are referring to Armando Sanchez, who signed a 4-yr, $2.375M contract prior to the 1985 season and was hurt twice for significant time. He did put up 16 and 14 homers in his last two years on the team, respectively, and left as free agent after the 1988 season (also known as "The Horrors" before these more recent dire straits which are suddenly stretching into the second half of a decade). He was a joy only in '87, the year the Indians beat us by one §$&§/% game.

No, he's not it. He slugged only .402 for the Raccoons (and .405 in his career), ranking 17th amongst all former Furballs with 1,000 AB or more.

The correct answer to the question is somebody who was a Furball for four years as well, but a decade later, coming to the Raccoons in a trade with the Aces before the 1994 season, and although he started his first season in Portland as a backup, he quickly made himself irreplacable in the outfield, smashing a fabulous 38 home runs in his first season. Injuries were nothing alien to him, though.

His franchise numbers are .289/.380/.545 with 89 HR and 328 RBI, and his career numbers are .276/.354/.500 with 205 HR and 788 RBI.

He left as free agent after the 1997 season, re-signing with the Aces eventually.

The answer is Royce Green!

And he is currently a 32-year old free agent.

Top 10 Raccoons in slugging percentage (min. 1,000 AB):
1st - Royce Green - .545
2nd - Tetsu Osanai - .485
3rd - Albert Martin - .468
4th - David Brewer - .454
5th - Neil Reece - .446
6th - Daniel Hall - .437
7th - Liam Wedemeyer - .432
8th - Vern Kinnear - .430
9th - Sam Dadswell - .424
10th - Mark Dawson - .423

Without the 1,000 AB requirement the list is filled entirely with pitchers (nine relievers and one starter), four of which happened to hit a home run, and none of which had more than 8 AB. Royce would be 11th then.

---

*That's not really the balance of my bank account. It's Daniel Hall's career home runs and his number. But seasoned readers will have realized that long before getting down here.

[Questdog]

Originally Posted by Westheim

I think you are referring to Armando Sanchez

Who?......Royce Green is who I meant! I failed to remember he was trade booty rather than a free agent. To prove I deserve the prize, refer to my above post.....If I recall correctly (and correct me if I am wrong), his first season was "fabulous" (as you say) and the next year he was out until July......

Armando Sanchez.....why the heck would I think he was the one?.....

[Westheim]

Originally Posted by Questdog

Who?......Royce Green is who I meant! I failed to remember he was trade booty rather than a free agent. To prove I deserve the prize, refer to my above post.....If I recall correctly (and correct me if I am wrong), his first season was "fabulous" (as you say) and the next year he was out until July......

Armando Sanchez.....why the heck would I think he was the one?.....

Well, the free agency part threw me off. You are right with the injuries. He hit 38 dingers in 1994, then strained a hammy and an intercostal (whatever the hell that is) for a total of 2 1/2 months of DL time in ’95. The BIG injury was in ’96, when he tore his labrum on September 1, not only missing the ill-fated final playoffs that held Raccoons, but also not recovering until the following June, and then went down to an ankle injury in September before becoming a free agent.

Okay, okay, you get the prize.

---

Raccoons (35-39) vs. Condors (32-43) – June 24-26, 2002

The Condors were playing losing ball for only the second time since 1981(!!!), languishing in a miserable fifth place in the CL South. Their offense was horrendous, beating out only the Crusaders’ and falling a wee bit shy of 4.0 R/G. The pitching staff was merely average at best.

Projected matchups:
Bob Joly (1-2, 3.13 ERA) vs. Ramón Ortíz (6-5, 5.10 ERA)
Carl Bean (6-8, 4.22 ERA) vs. Curt Powell (3-4, 3.59 ERA)
Ralph Ford (9-4, 2.34 ERA) vs. Jesus Bautista (6-6, 3.23 ERA)

Ah, a southpaw! Ortíz came at the right time to give some off days to as many left-handers as our lineup could hold on most days, which basically means Martin, Palacios, and Brady.

Game 1
TIJ: LF Bayle – SS J. Barrón – C Cicalina – RF B. Román – 2B B. Boyle – 1B Cambria – 3B Gorden – CF MacKey – P R. Ortíz
POR: 3B Sharp – SS Guerin – CF Reece – LF Roberson – 1B Ingall – C Fifield – 2B Matthews – RF Flores – P Joly

Wholly unexpectedly, fans were treated to a teeth-grinding pitchers’ duel in the series opener, and unfortunately it was one that Bob Joly was pitching on the short end of the score from early on. A Jimmy Bayle home run made it 1-0 Condors in the third inning, and that score was with us for some time. The Coons had had two singles in the first inning before Roberson killed the moment with a 4-6-3 double play, and then had NOTHING for the next six innings. Matthews hit a single in the eighth, but was left on first. Joly was still going in the ninth when Bartolo Román took him deep to double the score, and Ortíz was not leaving either, despite a Daniel Sharp leadoff double in the bottom 9th. When Concie took a 2-2 pitch to deep center for an RBI double, it was the end not only for Ortíz’ shutout, but also his day, as Enrico Gonzalez came out to protect the 2-1 lead with the tying run at second base and no outs. Reece struck out, and Roberson grounded to short, getting Concie to third. Suddenly things looked dull, as usual. Disregarding matchups against the left-hander Gonzalez, Palacios pinch-hit for Ingall and drilled the first pitch deep to right center. Román got there anyway. 2-1 Condors. Sharp 2-4, 2B; Joly 9.0 IP, 8 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 0 BB, 2 K, L (1-3)

Gah. So if that is what we can achieve against left-handers, I will now quit bemoaning the fact we don’t see any, and embrace every right-hander the opposition can throw at us.

Or maybe *I* should throw things at *our* right-handed batters. That sounds like a much better plan. (smacks Chris Roberson from behind with a glove)

Game 2
TIJ: 3B Gorden – SS J. Barrón – C Cicalina – RF B. Román – 2B B. Boyle – 1B Cambria – LF Bishop – CF MacKey – P Powell
POR: SS Guerin – 2B Palacios – CF Reece – 1B Martin – LF Roberson – RF Brady – 3B Sharp – C Fifield – P Bean

Rory Gorden and Urbano Cicalina were the only right-handers in the lineup that opposed Carl Bean, who struggled bad enough against right-handers as to not having to face five lefties and a switch-hitter as to be able to lose a game. He would certainly not have an excuse for losing, since the Raccoons scored early, and often. Chris Roberson smashed a 3-run homer in the first inning, and another run was tacked on in the second on a groundout by Guerin. However, Bean was giving them up at almost equal pace, with Hugues Cambria taking him deep in the second, and Román hitting another long shot for two runs in the third. With the bags full in the bottom 3rd, Fifield popped out to leave three men stranded, and the Condors were still whacking the balls hard, just lacking a little depth to sink Bean. While the Condors had a runner on in every inning, they were reeled in mainly by the defense, with Guerin making a number of nice plays, and Sharp made an awesome grab on a double-bound rocket just inside his bag. Albert Martin opened the score to 5-3 with a solo job in the bottom 5th, and the balls were flying REALLY well on this windy Tuesday. Bottom 7th, Palacios was on with a single. When he set off to nab second base, Urbano Cicalina’s throw was way over Barrón’s head, getting Palacios to third base. Which base he was on ultimately didn’t matter when Neil Reece fired a towering home run to left that got the score to 7-3. Farley lived to retire Cicalina to start the eighth, then yielded for left-handed relief. Juan Diaz would theoretically face five left-handers and had to get five outs. Well, he got three. Then, Jack Bishop singled, and he drilled Matt MacKey to end his day in shame and give Dan Nordahl his first appearance off the DL. And there was more shame coming our way with him! First he walked Jimmy Bayle to load the bases, and then walked in a run against Rory Gorden. Uh-oh. Barrón grounded to Palacios, but the Raccoons only got one, so Cicalina came up again, but ultimately hacked himself out. 7-5 Raccoons. Martin 2-4, HR, RBI; Sharp 1-2, BB;

Carl Bean might get torched even by no-handed batters…

Meanwhile, the ninth, well … we don’t expect anything from Diaz than embarrassment anyway, and we will chalk up Danny’s outing to rust and move on casually, ignoring all the bad signs.

Meanwhile, Al Martin has a 12-game hitting streak on.

Game 3
TIJ: LF Bayle – SS Osmond – 2B J. Barrón – C Cicalina – 1B B. Boyle – CF Gorden – RF B. Wilson – 3B Heathershaw – P Bautista
POR: SS Guerin – 2B Palacios – CF Reece – 1B Martin – LF Roberson – RF Brady – 3B Sharp – C Fifield – P Ford

Both Bayle and Osmond tried to lay down bunts in the first inning. While Bayle was defeated even by the lead-footed Albert Martin, Osmond reached, then was thrown out stealing. In the bottom 1st, Guerin and Palacios hit proper singles, then pulled off a double steal and scored on Reece’s single. Fifield smacked his tenth homer of the season (in 34 total hits) in the fourth, giving Ford a 3-0 lead. Ford had come in at 95 K for the year, but somehow the 100 didn’t want to fall. The Condors chose poor contact over no contact at all and put everything in play they possibly could. It took them until the fifth for that to finally work. Gorden drew a 4-pitch walk to start the inning and then Martin could not dig out Bill Wilson’s bunt, putting two men on for the third baseman with a winner’s name: Bradley Heathershaw. His name barely fit our scoreboard. And the strike zone couldn’t fit Ford’s offerings now. Heathershaw walked, putting the tying runs on with no outs. Now, Bautista was next and was an easy and thankfully received out. Then Bayle put the ball in play at 1-2, but grounded back to Ford, who had little trouble to fire home to get Rory Gorden. Fifield couldn’t get the last out, though. That brought up Glenn Osmond, who singled to center. Reece’s throw back home was WAY off and the Condors scored two runs, having the go-ahead runs in scoring position for Barrón, who flew out to Brady on the first pitch. Ugly inning, but still up by one. With two on and two out in the bottom 6th we had Fifield up to bat, and you just knew he wanted the BIG knock. When the count ran full, he was an automatic K: Bautista threw one in the dirt and Fifield swung so hard he lost his helmet. Both pitchers lingered into the seventh. Ford got threw it without problems, and Bautista sat down Ford and Guerin in the seventh before Palacios hit a double. Reece worked a hard-fought walk, and then Martin came up with a thundering shot that caromed off the wall in deep left for a 2-run double. Ford kept pitching with a 5-2 lead, still looking for #100, which turned out to be Jimmy Bayle to start the top 8th, and finished that inning, only yielding to Nordahl in the ninth. He got two strikes on both Cicalina and Boyle to start the inning, but both had hits and went to the corners. Uh-oh. Cambria struck out, and then he walked Wilson. Oh the ****s, something was wrong! Bartolo Román hit for Heathershaw. The count ran full, with the sixth pitch of the at-bat ending up somewhere corner-ish. After a second of silence that felt like an hour, the ump fisted out Román, who was up in arms at the decision and almost was ejected. Matt MacKey was the third pinch-hitter of the inning, another left-hander representing the tying run, and he had power. He also had a tendency to be too eager to get something done, and struck out. 5-2 Coons! Palacios 2-3, 2B; Martin 2-3, BB, 2B, 2 RBI; Ford 8.0 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 1 ER, 3 BB, 5 K, W (10-4);

(is blue in the face)

(exhales)

Uaa-ah! Danny either likes excitement a little too much, or there is something wrong with him. Well, his ERA is back below one, at 0.99 now. But those last two games were NOT pretty for him!

Also, Albert Martin had been able to sneak up on Ron Alston and Iván Gutierrez recenty, as both had stood still at 21 home runs. Well, the gap is back to five as Alston went deep of the Aces’ Tommy Wilson to get to 22.

Raccoons (37-40) vs. Crusaders (33-45) – June 27-30, 2002

Next we had four against the CL North’s bottom dwellers, the Crusaders, whom we were a nice 5-2 against this year (as opposed to last year, where we swept them in the opening series and then lost seven straight vs. them). No offense, non at all, at 3.6 R/G. If not for Anibal Sandoval in their rotation, they would have long imploded to something like 28-50. Of course Nick “No Run Support, Ever” Brown had the terrible misfortune of facing him in the second game.

Projected matchups:
Randy Farley (5-7, 4.00 ERA) vs. Kelly Fairchild (2-7, 3.60 ERA)
Nick Brown (4-5, 2.86 ERA) vs. Anibal Sandoval (9-5, 1.75 ERA)
Bob Joly (1-3, 2.88 ERA) vs. Mike Nelson (6-6, 4.33 ERA)
Carl Bean (7-8, 4.18 ERA) vs. George Kirk (0-1, 20.26 ERA)

Four right-handers! Rejoice!

In less splendid news, Mark Thomas failed to leave bed on Thursday. He had been sneezing the day before, but this was a flu if our medical staff had ever seen one. He was thoroughly unavailable to start this series, but we did not make a roster move for another catcher. We like living on the edge.

Game 1
NYC: LF M. Ortíz – CF Britton – RF A. Johnson – 1B Breach – SS Rice – 3B L. Ramirez – C Preston – 2B F. Adams – P Fairchild
POR: SS Guerin – 2B Palacios – CF Reece – 1B Martin – LF Roberson – RF Brady – 3B Sharp – C Fifield – P Farley

Danny Sharp tagged Coon-no-more Kelly Fairchild with a 2-run homer in the bottom of the second. When Fifield made the second out, the inning was about over, unless someone did something stupid. Said someone turned out to be Luis Ramirez, throwing away Farley’s grounder for a 2-base error. Here came Concie, saw a pitch and hit it to left, and it was well enough for another 2-run homer! Fairchild’s pains weren’t quite over yet: Palacios hit a double and scored on Reece’s single, before Martin struck out mercifully in the 5-0 game. Yet, with the post-2000 Randy Farley, no 5-run lead was ever safe, so caution was called for. Then again, these were the abysmal Crusaders. When Gary Rice dropped an easy pop by Guerin in the fourth, they had more errors than hits on their ledger, and another error by Ramirez gave the errors a 3-1 lead in the sixth. The Coons scored neither time, not getting a key hit anywhere past that second inning. Avery Johnson had an infield single in the seventh, and Rice led off the eighth with a double, pulling hits and errors equal for them. Soon enough, they were in business with a wild pitch and an RBI single by 2-error guy Luis Ramirez. No later than they were in business, they were out of it, too, as Mark Preston hit into a double play and Fred Adams whiffed. The Coons pulled that run back in the bottom 8th after six innings of fail. Farley had been hit for and with the score of lefties the Crusaders offered, Mauro Rodriguez was inserted into the ninth. He ACTUALLY managed to make it a save situation. Mark Berry popped out to second to start the inning, before Ortíz was drilled by Rodriguez. Two down, Johnson singled to right, and Breach followed him with Brady making a throwing error as Johnson went first-to-third. 6-2, two in scoring position, one lefty yielded for another, as Juan Diaz would get a shot at switch-hitter Gary Rice, with Marcos Bruno next in line. Bruno wouldn’t be bothered, but this was not due to Diaz’ achievements. Neil Reece did some exercise to snag Rice’s fly to deep center before things could turn truly ugly. 6-2 Furballs! Palacios 2-5, 2B, RBI; Reece 2-4, BB, 2B, RBI; Sharp 2-4, HR, 2B, 2 RBI; Parker (PH) 1-1; Farley 8.0 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 5 K, W (6-7);

In 143 mostly horrible games, this was the first career save for Juan Diaz. But while he might have walked 72 batters in 101.1 innings, the Crusaders fielded Mike Collins during this game. Collins this year has pitched 32.2 innings, and has walked *45* batters. Between 1999 and 2000, he appeared in 37 games for us, walking 26, but sucking capitally in general.

Finding left-handed relief is bothersome…

Game 2
NYC: CF M. Ortíz – SS Rice – RF Gonzales – C D. Anderson – 2B L. Ramirez – 1B Berry – LF A. Johnson – 3B J. Martinez – P Sandoval
POR: 3B Sharp – 2B Palacios – CF Reece – 1B Martin – LF Roberson – RF Brady – SS Matthews – C Thomas – P Brown

Coming into this game, Ralph Ford was in the top 10 in all three Triple Crown categories, with Sandoval leading in ERA. C’mon boys! Help thee brother!

The first inning showed what mess the Crusaders were actually in. While they had a base runner in the top 1st, it was merely Gonzales getting hit by Brown. In the bottom 1st, Palacios was on first with Reece batting. His single to center was brought back in by Ortíz as Palacios eagerly went to third. The throw was wild, bringing both runners into scoring position. Martin extended his streak to 15 games with an RBI single, but the run was unearned. When Roberson’s grounder was botched by Ramirez, the Coons went up 2-0, and Sandoval could surrender runs as long as he pleased, none would be earned. His second pitch to Clyde Brady was wild, moving the runners into scoring position, but the Coons didn’t get any more runs. The mess the Raccoons were in however was named Nick Brown in this game. He drilled Ramirez leading off the top 2nd. Johnson would single before Ramirez was caught stealing third – which was in due time, since Martinez took Brown deep to tie the score. No, that was not a good start for Brownie. Neither was it for Sandoval. Martin tripled off him in the bottom 3rd and was brought home by a Roberson single, and THIS run was earned, in fact. Martin turned out to be a very bad matchup for Sandoval in this game: after the Coons stranded two in the third eventually, Brown led off the fourth with a single, and Martin came to bat with two on and two out, hitting another single to center. Bases full for Roberson, who was just as bad a matchup for the right-handed Sandoval and hit another easy soft line to center to score another run, before Brady’s pop to left ended the inning with three more stranded. It was a dangerous game the Raccoons played, and one that backfired immediately again, when Johnson and Martinez hit singles off Brown to start the fifth. Luckily only Johnson scored on a sac fly by Ortíz, keeping the Coons 4-3 ahead for the moment, but the Crusaders loaded them up with two out in the sixth, and Martinez was back up. He game as close to a grand slam as I could watch without fainting, and Brady made the catch in deep right.

Brown retired Sandoval and Ortíz in the seventh before Rice pushed a single through Sharp. That was enough, and we wanted a right-hander for Jorge Gonzales, who was a switch-hitter, but a natural righty. Bruno fell to 3-1 on him, but Gonzales then grounded out. Bottom 7th of a mad contest, Martin led off with a trickler between Ramirez and Berry that neither Purplehat could dig out and was safe with his fourth hit on the day. Roberson walked and Brady singled to center, loading them up with no outs. Sandoval was not coming out. Parker hit for Matthews, grounded to short and the slow Martin was out at home. Thomas hit a sac fly, moving Brady to third. Bruno yielded for Ingall with two out, and while Marv quickly had two strikes on him, he managed to lob a fantastic Ingall single into shallow right!

6-3 Raccoons and six outs to collect, Miller got one out before Ramirez singled. Diaz replaced him and gave New York free runners with a drill to Berry and a walk to Johnson. Three on, one out, Martinez entered to face Martinez, as confusion abounded, but Alan Breach pinch-hit for Jose Martinez after Manuel Martinez came in – and worked a walk. Oh well. Our last hope was Dan Nordahl despite lefty Apasyu Britton now announced to hit for Sandoval. What could Rodriguez do here? Walk some more? Nordahl came, Nordahl saw, Nordahl conquered, striking out Britton AND Ortíz to escape this most terrible jam.

Two on and one out in the bottom 8th, Roberson hit to short, where Fred Adams delivered another New York special, an error to load the bases. Yet, Brady couldn’t solve Leonardo Sosa’s fastball and struck out, and now Nordahl appeared in the box. Well, we were out of arms (safe for Huerta and Rodriguez). He had to bat. He did respectably against Sosa, and the count ran full. The seventh pitch was low and fouled off by Danny, before he watched at ball four! Thomas made the third out, but Nordahl had given us another run! Well, and himself, basically.

And when all seemed well, it wasn’t. Gary Rice homered to lead off the ninth. Gonzales singled, and Daryl Anderson homered. And all of Portland lay in ruins. A park that had been booming just two minutes earlier, fell silent. Completely silent. Nordahl came out, Huerta came in, Johnson homered, and another generation of fans left the park, never to return again. They missed the Raccoons loading them up in the bottom 9th on singles by Ingall, Palacios, and Reece, for Martin to hit with one out, facing closer Dane Sanders. Martin, undefeated by New York pitching today, drew a bases-loaded walk, deferring responsibility to avoid defeat to Roberson, who had a knack for double plays, but his grounder to short was taken for one out at home this time. Brady popped out.

9-8 Crusaders. Palacios 4-6; Martin 4-4, 2 BB, 3B, 2 RBI; Roberson 2-5, BB, 3 RBI; Ingall (PH) 2-2, RBI;

16 men left on base.

SIXTEEN MEN ... left on base.

No matter how well things might be going at one moment, it will always blow up. Things will always crumble to dust with this team. There is no hope. There is no hope, and tomorrow, nobody will buy a ticket. Because why? The team sucks beyond belief, has done so for five and a half years, and it will never get any better.

Refunds to season ticket holders would be due. To all four of them.

Game 3
NYC: LF M. Ortíz – 3B L. Ramirez – RF A. Johnson – 1B Breach – SS Rice – C D. Anderson – CF Gonzales – 2B J. Martinez – P Nelson
POR: SS Guerin – 2B Palacios – CF Roberson – 1B Martin – RF Brady – 3B Ingall – C Fifield – LF Parker – P Joly

To my surprise, there were still people at the park on Saturday. Well, lots of kids because Maud had cooked up some family crap, and all the high-pitched screaming made me retreat to my office before the first pitch. The Coons took a 1-0 lead on defensive ineptitude by the Crusaders that gave Concie an extra base he converted for a run. The Coons continued to leave runners on base otherwise, and when Avery Johnson hit a leadoff triple in the fourth, the lead was history. Instantly emotionally, after an Alan Breach sac fly factually. That inning, Joly surrendered four long flies, three of which were caught, but Johnson’s wasn’t. One could see it coming from a mile away, but Joly was smothered by the Crusaders in the fifth, with a Brady error being no help. Three runs scored, putting the Raccoons down 4-1. Reece led off the bottom 5th hitting for Mauro Rodriguez, and doubled past the reach of Ramirez at third. Guerin was hit by Nelson and Palacios hit to short, but they only got Guerin. Roberson’s pop went to second, and Martinez dropped it. The Crusaders just couldn’t stop fudging it up. Neither could the Raccoons. The bases were loaded with two outs, and Ingall struck out. Mike Collins and Daniel Miller both surrendered three runs in no time, leaving the Coons behind by two into the bottom 7th, but the Raccoons weren’t getting on base. It came as far as the home crowd rooting for Avery Johnson, who was a single shy of the cycle in the top 9th, but Huerta got him to ground out to Martin. After this anticlimax, Rice homered, and the last ten Raccoons in the game all ended up being sat down. 8-5 Crusaders. Palacios 2-5, HR, 4 RBI; Reece (PH) 1-1, 2B;

Yeah, we’re kicking that offensively inept team’s butt!

Game 4
NYC: 3B L. Ramirez – CF Britton – RF A. Johnson – 1B Beach – SS Rice – C D. Anderson – LF Gonzales – 2B F. Adams – P Kirk
POR: SS Guerin – 2B Palacios – CF Reece – 1B Martin – RF Brady – 3B Sharp – LF Parker – C Thomas – P Bean

Al Martin ran his hitting streak to 17 games with a just fair 2-run homer in the first inning. The runs were unearned after Reece had reached on an error. Carl Bean started the game shaky, but drove in his eighth run of the year with a 1-out RBI single in the bottom 2nd. Bean soon got torn up by the more and more annoying Gary Rice, who ripped a 2-out, 3-run triple in the next inning. Now, Bean was a giant disappointment as a pitcher, but maybe we should let him play every day regardless. With Parker on first in the bottom 4th, Bean drilled a line drive over Ramirez that didn’t come down until it made it to the warning track, handily plating Parker from first to break a 3-3 tie. Bean scored on a Guerin grounder that trickled through between the middle infielders, 5-3. Kirk would not surrender another batter, giving up three more singles that plated two runs before Nick Hartman got the team out of the inning. Bean still failed at his day job, issuing two walks to start the sixth. Daryl Anderson’s hard grounder was marvelously played by Al Martin for a double play and the Crusaders didn’t score. Somehow, nobody knew quite how, Bean made it through seven innings with his 7-3 lead. A slightly abused bullpen saw Rodriguez pitching in the eighth, with three left-handers up first. Ape Britton hit a leadoff double, but was left on base, and Marcos Bruno made it a 1-2-3 ninth. 7-3 Coons. Palacios 2-5; Reece 2-5, RBI; Martin 3-5, HR, 3 RBI; Brady 2-4; Parker 2-3, BB, 2B; Bean 7.0 IP, 4 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 4 BB, 7 K, W (8-8) and 2-2, 2B, 2 RBI;

To be clear, Bean is listed mostly for his batting merits in this game. He is a career .251 batter in 334 AB for his career.

In other news

June 30 – 34-year old CHA CL Cory Maupin (2-3, 1.50 ERA, 19 SV) saves a 5-3 win over the Thunder to notch his 300th career save. A 1985 supplemental round pick and 7-time All Star, Maupin started with the Gold Sox in 1988, but didn’t become the full time closer until 1993. Since then he has pitched for four other teams. He has a 2.77 career ERA and 852 strikeouts.
June 30 – SFW INF Jaime Mateo (.289, 4 HR, 40 RBI) will miss a month with a broken finger after getting hit by Salem’s George Allen (6-6, 5.38 ERA).
June 30 – TOP 1B/2B Georg Spinu (.331, 8 HR, 51 RBI) is hampered by back spams and has been listed as DTD by the Buffaloes.

Complaints and stuff

This Friday game…

This Friday game…

-.-

Honestly, when was the last time the Raccoons had a 10-game winner – in June! MUST have been pre-1997.* Is it a sign of times improving? The baseball gods becoming kinder to the Critters? Nah, they still allowed Friday to happen.

In any case, Albert Martin was named CL Batter of the Month, torturing pitchers at a .388, 6 HR, 21 RBI rate, plus enough walks to be on base 45.2% of the time.

Depressing note: the Titans waived Vern Kinnear and got him onto their AAA team. $1.06M batting for Toledo now.

*Actually it was 1996. Kisho Saito won his tenth on June 24, spinning eight innings of 3-hit, 1-run ball in a 3-1 win over the Knights, two days earlier than Ford won #10 this year. Nobody has been even close since then.

[Westheim]

Raccoons (39-42) @ Canadiens (34-46) – July 1-4, 2002

The Elks had us for four over at their place as we were once again playing the four-and-four around the All Star Game with them. One game against those vile miscreations was bad enough, but eight in the space of two weeks was borderline torture. They had built themselves an effective offense, but had about no pitching. In fact, their games averaged a total of 10.0 runs scored on aggregate, with them both scoring and allowing just a bit over 400 runs so far, and their run differential was actually only -8. While we were on it, the Coons’ differential was +11, but they still had a losing record.

Projected matchups:
Ralph Ford (10-4, 2.25 ERA) vs. Joe Hollow (6-5, 2.40 ERA)
Randy Farley (6-7, 3.79 ERA) vs. Jose Dominguez (8-4, 3.98 ERA)
Nick Brown (4-5, 2.93 ERA) vs. Juan Bello (3-8, 5.27 ERA)
Bob Joly (1-4, 2.78 ERA) vs. Paul Kirkland (1-2, 5.04 ERA)

We get the left-hander up front, followed by three righties. Bello is a former #1 prospect, for whom it just isn’t coming all together in the majors. You might want to blame the Elks for debuting him at age 19, but a 13-22 record and 4.19 ERA will ultimately have its roots somewhere. 188 walks in 376.1 innings pitched might be a factor. He has 190 career appearances, but this will actually be only his 24th start.

Game 1
POR: SS Guerin – 1B Ingall – CF Reece – LF Roberson – 3B Sharp – C Fifield – 2B Matthews – RF Flores – P Ford
VAN: SS Simon – CF T. Wilson – LF Trinidad – 3B Phillips – RF Wheaton – 2B Dobson – 1B J. Durán – C Hurtado – P Hollow

The Canadiens made two errors early, with Roberson eventually driving home an unearned run in the third. The Coons loaded them up, but Fifield grounded out to leave them on, and in the bottom of the inning Pedro Hurtado led off with a double and scored on Arthur Simon’s single to re-tie the score. But the Coons struck back in the fourth, with a 1-out double by Flores, Ford walking, and then Guerin getting it just over Ramón Trinidad for an RBI double. An Ingall sac fly made it 3-1. For our first 10-game winner in June in six years, it didn’t end well, though. The Elks didn’t have much going against him, mostly making poor contact, but also Ford was lacking his best stuff today, ultimately striking only four, and it cost not only a run in the sixth, but also the tying run in the seventh. After Wheaton and Dobson pulled off a double steal, Hurtado got an intentional walk with two out. Jesus Zamora hit for Hollow and drew another walk to tie the score before Simon flew out to Reece in left center. The Elks loaded them up again in the bottom 8th against Marcos Bruno, who walked a pair and then looked bad on Jerry Dobson’s infield single, but ultimately the Coons got another easy fly from Durán to escape. Neither team reached base in the ninth, giving us early extras in this series, and there the Raccoons still couldn’t get on, and it killed them quickly. Rodriguez, who had pitched the ninth, had two runners on base in no time, and Manuel Martinez failed trying to clean up. The Elks walked off on Jerry Dobson’s double. 4-3 Canadiens.

Well, five hits won’t do, especially not against a team that knows how to score.

Why has Edgardo Torrez not been promoted back to the Bigs? Well, back spasms have felled him in late June, and now it looks like he will miss all of July and a sound part of August.

(cries out) And it just won’t get any better!!!

Game 2
POR: SS Guerin – 2B Palacios – CF Reece – 1B Martin – RF Brady – 3B Sharp – LF Parker – C Thomas – P Farley
VAN: SS Simon – LF T. Wilson – RF J. Durán – 1B I. Gutierrez – CF Wheaton – 3B Sutton – 2B Phillips – C D. Davis – P Dominguez

Farley was no good, the offense was – well, active, but not productive. The game was tied at three after four innings, with Raymond Sutton doing the honors in the bottom 3rd with a massive home run to dead center for all three Canadiens runs. Farley had walked three, allowed five hits, and not struck out anybody until then. Sutton then flipped the score after a 2-run first by the Coons, but they came back with a Mark Thomas solo home run in the fourth, and also were closing in on double digits in leaving runners on base yet again. In the fifth we had the bases loaded again, with two out – and Farley up. It was just … well, we … but … aaarghh!!! No, the bullpen was already aching. There was no point in - … no… yeah, let Randy hit. And he struck out, then had Durán double and walked a pair to load them up in the bottom 5th, facing Phillips with two down. In retrospect one wondered where all the confidence might come from, but Farley remained in, walked home a run against Phillips, and then Doug Davis singled another run home. Two things happened in the top 6th (besides Farley being taken out and sent to bed without dinner), as Neil Reece tied the score with a long bomb to left, but also Concie pulling a hammy and leaving the game. Bottom 6th, we had left-handers coming up, so we went to Juan Diaz, who was as ****ing **** as always, putting two on and then getting sunk by a 3-run homer by Gutierrez. That pretty much ended the contest in disgrace, and not only for Diaz, who walked Wheaton before getting taken out and Huerta appearing to suck up as much damage as possible. He whiffed Phillips to end the inning eventually, the first K in the game for the Raccoons after eight walks. The Coons had the bases loaded again in the top 8th, with Parker flying out to right to waste yet another chance. Facing Paul Brown in the ninth, Palacios plated Roberson with a 2-out single to get Neil Reece up as the tying run. Reece had been retired only once in the game, and chopped a most terrible bloop that dinked into shallow center. Runners on the corners for Martin, streak extended just barely with a 1-5 day, and HE sent one to shallow center, scoring Palacios and getting Reece to second for Clyde Brady, with the righty Brown still in there. C’mon Clyde, gotta get one more! And he grounded out. 8-7 Canadiens. Guerin 2-3, BB; Reece 4-5, BB, HR, 2B, 3 RBI; Brady 2-4, 2 BB, 2B, RBI; Roberson (PH) 1-1; Huerta 2.2 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 3 K;

SIXTEEN MEN LEFT ON BASE!! ****ING **** TEAM!!!

(sobs)

Well. It’s the ****ing Elks. Gotta expect humiliation. Expect and accept.

The only thing that kept me from beating Farley senseless with a heavy metal chain after this game was the fact that this series was in Canada, and I was in Portland, and the border guards were advised to open fire at me without warning.

Guerin was put on the DL, and is expected to miss about two to three weeks, which we will have to accept as well. Say hello to lifelong fail Brent McLaughlin.

Game 3
POR: 2B Palacios – 3B Sharp – CF Reece – 1B Martin – LF Roberson – SS Ingall – RF Brady – C Fifield – P Brown
VAN: SS Simon – 2B Dobson – LF Trinidad – 3B Phillips – RF Wheaton – CF J. Durán – 1B D. Davis – C Hurtado – P Bello

Maybe Brownie would have more luck. Or maybe not.

Not.

After Reece double played the Raccoons out of the top half of the first, the bottom half was plain ugly. First, Simon flew out to deep left, and Dobson struck out. Then the Elks hit two singles off Brown, and dropped another single where it didn’t belong, scoring Trinidad from second base. Durán walked to load them up, before Davis grounded sharply to Ingall, and it was too sharp for Ingall, two runs scoring on an error. Brown could get two strikes on almost anybody, but no more. Three singles in the second plated another run, 4-0. That remained the score as Brown kept missing or hitting and then getting hit, and the Canadiens used him up in five innings. The Raccoons didn’t have anything going at all. After leaving guys all over the field the day before (and for the last week in general), they couldn’t hit a lick against another pitcher with an ERA indicating better usage for him in AAA ball. In turn, anybody the Raccoons put in was torn to shreds. Miller surrendered a run in the sixth, Bruno two in the seventh, and Nordahl one in the eighth. The last run was unearned after a Martin error. Juan Bello was left unmolested by the Uttercoons, shutting them out on seven hits, all but one singles. 8-0 Canadiens. Palacios 2-4; Ingall 3-4, 2B;

Albert Martin’s hitting streak ended, just like any hope for maybe STILL ending up at .500 (totally undeservedly of course) evaporated in a puff of terrible smoke.

And it is always THAT **** TEAM.

Game 4
POR: 2B Palacios – 3B Sharp – CF Roberson – 1B Martin – RF Brady – LF Parker – SS Ingall – C Thomas – P Joly
VAN: SS Simon – LF T. Wilson – RF J. Durán – 1B I. Gutierrez – 2B Dobson – 3B Sutton – CF Trinidad – C Hurtado – P Norris

George Norris (0-0, 4.50 ERA in 2 IP) took over the start in the final game, since the Canadiens were basically assured that their pathetically comically inept opponents weren’t able to hit even a borderline AAA starter with seven appearances over four seasons. Well, Roberson hit him for a 1-out RBI triple in the top 1st, but was then left on base, and that was before Joly ever threw a pitch. He walked Simon in the first, but the Canadiens didn’t score. Top 2nd, Joly hit a 1-out single that loaded the bases, then took out Simon with a hard slide before the Elks could turn a double play on Palacios’ grounder. The Coons still didn’t score more than Ingall coming home on the groundout, 2-0. Brady made a horrible error in the bottom 2nd, giving the Elks two in scoring position with one out, but then Hurtado fouled out for the second out, having Joly face the pitcher. Norris drilled a shot to deep center, where Roberson risked arm, leg, and neck to catch it against the wall. The out was recorded, Roberson and the wall both survived. Brady came back with an enormous 2-run homer in the third, 4-0, but with Joly pitching shoddily, no lead was safe. The Elks loaded them up in the third before Sutton flew out to Parker to end the frame. Even with a 4-run lead, Joly was not far behind the Tasmanian tigers on the extinction timetable, but the Elks didn’t get on the board until Tom Wilson hit a leadoff jack in the fifth. They put the tying run at the plate, but couldn’t plate anybody else. Neither could the Coons, leaving somebody on in every inning after the fourth. Bottom 7th, Joly’s time ended quickly with two singles by Wilson and Durán. Rodriguez appeared to face the tying run in Gutierrez, getting a groundout. Martinez was next immediately, but the score started to turn on him, as he walked Dobson, and ultimately allowed a 2-run single to Zamora. Somehow, nobody knew quite how, the Canadiens left the bags full despite their part of the line score being declared open house by the Raccoons, who remained up 4-3 after seven. The Coons put two on in the eighth, left two on in the eighth, and Diaz came out to face the predominantly left-handed top of the lineup in the bottom 8th. He actually held on to the lead, striking out two. We DESPERATELY needed an insurance run, which did not come to be, as our 3-4-5 went down 1-2-3 against Pedro Alvarado. Nordahl time in the bottom 9th, and that had never been a pleasant time the last two weeks. After Nordahl K’ed Dobson, Sharp chose the most inopportune moment to commit only his fourth error of the year, a 2-base misthrow on Alejandro Roldán’s grounder. Trinidad grounded out, bringing Roldán to third, but Nordahl came through, salvaging at least one game in the City That Smells, striking out Hurtado. 4-3 Raccoons. Sharp 2-4, BB; Thomas 1-2, BB, 2B;

This team… This team…

We also lost another player, because the baseball gods HATE US SO MUCH, as Mark Thomas strained a quad on a double. Oh come on! You nasty, hideous baseball gods! That kid makes contact ONCE, and you immediately have him tear out a leg!!

Well, how are we going to replace that .130 bat? With Pablo Fernandez, perhaps.

Raccoons (40-45) @ Titans (54-33) – July 5-7, 2002

Fourth in offense and second in defense, the Titans were keeping the Loggers at bay despite having lost their last three games, and six of their last eight. But let’s not talk about recent success so much, and the 111-games-below-.500 post-1996 Raccoons escpecially.

Projected matchups:
Carl Bean (8-8, 4.16 ERA) vs. Bryce Hildred (8-2, 3.27 ERA)
Ralph Ford (10-4, 2.34 ERA) vs. Jorge Chapa (7-6, 2.52 ERA)
Randy Farley (6-7, 4.02 ERA) vs. Jason O’Halloran (10-4, 3.12 ERA)

Looks like one of those series where the Raccoons will score five runs over three games and get out-drummed in hits, 42-16.

Game 1
POR: 2B Palacios – CF Reece – LF Roberson – 1B Martin – RF Brady – 3B Sharp – SS Matthews – C Fifield – P Bean
BOS: SS D. Silva – 2B Matsumoto – LF Jin – RF G. Munoz – C L. Lopez – 3B Austin – CF Garrison – 1B H. Ramirez – P Hildred

First inning, Palacios singled, Reece walked, Roberson singled. Three on, no outs against Hildred, that no-good ex-Coon that was suddenly TREMENDOUS, and Martin hit a sac fly. Brady walked, and Sharp’s fly to center was too shallow for Reece to tag and score, and oh my ****, they’re gonna leave them up again. Well, no. Not quite. Hildred threw a wild pitch to score Reece, and then Matthews shoved a single between Ramirez and Matsumoto to plate two more! 4-0 Coons, now bring on the Bean! The Bean was no good again, being tagged for half his lead in the second inning. Martin singled home Palacios in the fifth, 5-2, but by then the game was about something else. Hildred had hit Roberson in the third inning – and AGAIN in the fifth! Roberson looked badly worn by now, standing at second, and the Coons’ dugout was hollering a few words of choice at Hildred. Brady was not part of that group, but let the bat to the talking, ripping an RBI double that ended Hildred’s night at 6-2 and penciled in for two more in scoring position, which the Coons failed to plate once Andy Castle fanned Sharp and Matthews popped out. Bean surrendered a run in the bottom 5th, the Coons starved two more in the top 6th, before in the bottom 6th Jin led off with a flyout to left. Then Munoz took one into the side. Now the Titans were barking, and the park was also in it, paper and cups being littered all over the visiting team’s dugout. Bean didn’t make it out of the inning, leaving with the tying runs in scoring position, two out, and a left-hander up in Hector Ramirez. Rodriguez came in, walked him, before David Mendez fouled out to end the inning. Rodriguez kept pitching in the seventh, only being bailed out by Matthews turning a nifty double play. The Coons again left two men on in the top 8th. We were being forced to choose between Huerta and Miller with no right-hander in sight for the next five batters starting in the bottom 8th, giving the nod to the former, who put the first two batters on. Eventually we did go to Diaz with two out and two on, although Diaz was overworked and sucked even when not overworked. He faced Vicente Elizondo, who popped out on the first pitch. Nordahl, also overworked and not stellar at all, appeared for the third straight day in the ninth and had no cushion. We were begging for a loss. Silva led off, popped to second, and Palacios dropped it. It was utterly amazing. Matsumoto bunted Silva to second before Jin struck out. That left it to Munoz, who had been plunked by Bean earlier. First pitch swing, contact, high, deep, good night. 7-6 Titans. Palacios 4-5;

How can you not just ****ing cry with these ****ing ****bags?

Game 2
POR: 2B Palacios – CF Reece – LF Roberson – 1B Martin – 3B Ingall – SS Matthews – RF G. Flores – C Fifield – P Ford
BOS: 2B D. Mendez – 3B V. Flores – RF Jin – CF Garrison – 1B Matsumoto – LF Austin – SS H. Ramirez – C Bader – P Chapa

More kicks to the nuts for the Raccoons, as Ralph Ford got to 2-strike counts on five hitters in the first two innings, failed to strike out anybody, and did not reappear for the third due to a wrist injury. He was on a 1-0 hook, and the Raccoons were getting their neutrons disrupted by Jorge Chapa, who fanned six in three innings. We hoped for length from Daniel Miller, who retired three men on three pitches in the third. In the top 4th, Roberson led off with a single, but was thrown out stealing before Martin doubled, and the Raccoons didn’t score. Miller was much less miraculous in his second inning of work, walking two and allowing a run. Top 5th, the Titans defense committed two consecutive throwing errors into the seats on grounders by Fifield and Miller, getting the Coons to 2-1, and the tying run on second with one out, Palacios singled, moving Miller to third, and then Reece hit into a double play. The abysmal **** team continued being abysmal. And ****. Miller went a total of four innings in the 2-1 game, and in the top 7th Matthews led off with a soft single, before Flores bunted, Chapa took it to second – but Matthews was safe! And then Fifield hit into a double play. Ramiro Román replaced Chapa, struck out Clyde Brady, and I resorted to crying and eating and crying and eating. Shame was not over, though: Rodriguez and Bruno issued four consecutive 2-out walks between them in the bottom 7th. The Raccoons left two men on in the top 8th after being walked twice, and then Matthews led off the ninth with a home run off John Bennett, getting back to 3-2. Sharp hit for Martinez in the #7 slot and doubled! And the Raccoons were in business, which meant they would soon be out of business. Fifield was next, flew to deep left, but not deep enough. Brady hacked himself out, and then Palacios sent a fly to deep center, and Garrison got that one, too. 3-2 Titans. Matthews 2-4, HR, RBI; Miller 4.0 IP, 1 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 0 K;

(cries furiously) Donuts. Nom. (sobs) Why meee!!!???

Game 3
POR: 2B Palacios – CF Reece – LF Roberson – 1B Martin – 3B Ingall – RF Brady – C Fernandez – SS McLaughlin – P Farley
BOS: SS D. Silva – 2B Matsumoto – LF Jin – C L. Lopez – 3B Austin – CF Garrison – RF Elizondo – 1B H. Ramirez – P O’Halloran

With the bullpen roughed up for good except maybe Huerta and Bruno (if he could stop the bleeding walks), we tandemed Farley and Brown in this game. As soon as Randy inevitably got stuck, Brown would take over to walk six or seven, and then we’d forfeit the season, get our record expunged, and go fishing.

Putting pressure on Farley, the Raccoons scored in the first on a Roberson double and Martin single, creating a 1-0 lead that didn’t survive the third inning, but that was already two innings more than anybody would have bet on. But the Titans were doing something wrong, since although Farley sucked against left-handers, and there was ONE right-handed batter in the lineup (Matsumoto), they didn’t kill him outright. Instead, Martin hit a 1-out triple in the sixth and was scored by Brady, renewing the Coons’ lead at 2-1. The Titans weren’t getting any good contact off Farley, and the 2-1 score stood through eight. O’Halloran left with an injury after seven. Xavier Herrera was not scored upon in the ninth, although Brady reached and Sharp pinch-hit for a deep fly to left that was caught by Chih-tui Jin. And right now, with only three hits on him, Farley was something like our best bet in the bottom 9th. Jin led off, and walked. Well, ****. We scrambled some, and Nick Brown, who had warmed up with Bruno, appeared as reliever, and right away surrendered a double to Luis Lopez. Well, I expected defeat all along. The next two pitches from Brown were both drilled to deep center. Reece caught both, but Austin scored Jin with a sacrifice to tie the score, while Victor Flores moved up Lopez. Elizondo fouled out, and we got what we needed most: more innings. In our little ****ing corner of hell, Nick Brown even had to lead off the top 10th against Luis Valdes, while the bench was well stocked, but the bullpen wasn’t. The problem wasn’t Brown, either. Brownie made his outs, but the problem were the eight guys around him, and that Martin was not in the game anymore due to defensive considerations, and instead Gary “Fricking” Fifield was in the #4 hole and killed two innings in overtime. Brown went four more innings, struck out six, and never got in line for the W. Huerta took over in the 14th, and the end came rather quickly, a walk to Corey Bader, a passed ball, and Hector Ramirez sending everybody to the All Star break with a double. 3-2 Titans. Martin 2-4, 3B, RBI; Brady 2-4, 2 BB, RBI; Matthews (PH) 1-1; Farley 8.0 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 3 BB, 3 K; Brown 5.0 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 6 K;

(sits silently in a corner)

Ralph Ford was not hurt seriously, apart from taking a totally nuts loss and grieving over that, with no serious damage to the wrist except for a bit of soreness.

In other news

July 2 – ATL LF/RF Alejandro Rodriguez (.351, 1 HR, 29 RBI) has manufactured a 20-game hitting streak, although he probably didn’t celebrate a lot after getting one hit in an 8-1 rout of the Knights by the Thunder.
July 3 – The Thunder stop the Knights again, 3-1, and also kill Rodriguez’ streak at 20 games.
July 4 – The Thunder keep beating the Knights, winning 4-0 on Thursday with Javier Navarro (2-5, 2.67 ERA, 20 SV) shutting them out with trouble brewing in the ninth. Navarro locks down his 300th career save. Navarro, who has a 2.34 career ERA and 785 K in 703 games, was signed by the Titans out of Venezuela in 1987, and became their closer in 1992. He has been an 11-time All Star.

Complaints and stuff

(puts down the newspaper) Oh, you’re still here watching this cascade of uselessness failing spiraling ever faster out of control. Well, I can’t say all that much more. As you can see, I am over the job offers.

[Westheim]

Just for information, the league as a whole is slowly going into the dump.

I tried to get a trade done, couldn't, and then I remembered there have been no trades but for scrubs all season, and when I looked around I noticed that of 24 teams, all but the Miners and Rebels were overbudget, and almost 20 were overbudget by seven figures, and by as much as $4.2M (which is substantial given that the biggest budgets in the league are around $26M).

As a result of that, there are currently about 30 players with 2 1/2 stars or more that are unsigned, mostly relief pitchers, but there's also a number of other players in there, like dear Royce Green, and a few top guys like SP Takeru Sato, SP Ramiro Gonzalez, INF Bob Rush, 3B Ramiro Quintero, and INF Bob Butler. Nobody can pay for their services.

If somebody knows the ins and outs of the financial settings page (the manual tries, but sucks), and how I can lift the team *budgets* significantly *before* the next offseason begins (since the budgets won't change anymore after the first day of the offseason, and this is an urgent matter), without the player contract demands going up in tandem, then I would be very thankful for a PM. This ain't the place for stuff like that. Thx.

Regardless, this does not excuse the Mexican Prick, he's still a prick.

[Westheim]

All Star Game

Everybody spent their All Star Break differently.

Jesus Palacios, Albert Martin, and Ralph Ford spent theirs in New York, being nominated to the Continental League roster. It was not necessarily an uplifting experience for them. While the CL won 4-2, Palacios and Martin only appeared as pinch-hitters, drawing a walk and singling, respectively, while Ford was not used, still nursing a sore wrist.

Vince was down in Mexico, scanning sweatshops and trying to tell the one talented 16-year old from all the other impoverished kids with no future. And no hopes. In some way, they all fit into our organization. I tried to send Vince towards the way of the Prick to poison him, so we could get an owner willing to pay, but Vince had none of that. His job was dissecting human bodies, he said, and when I said I was okay with dismemberment just as well, he just left.

Maud and I spent our days arguing over all kinds of crap, non of which particularly bothered me. I mean, it’s nice that she wants to do things for the fans and deliver some excitement off the field, but to be honest, there weren’t a lot of fans at the park anyway because the product ON the field was so depressing. She wasn’t going to fill the house with her ideas, and wasn’t going to bolster her resume, but neither was I, and frankly time was running out for both of us. Better concede defeat.

There was ONE guy in the organization who was not giving up. It was Chad. Somewhere around May I had given in to Maud and we had gotten Chad into a BROWN Raccoons mascot. I was no expert with children and their childish needs, but they seemed to love Chad when he was hopping up and down the warning track, regularly falling down. It was a PERFECT impression of the franchise’s top flight team. Of course, Chad fell down because he was high on fumes, while the Raccoons were just terminally inept. The costume had a stiff, swung tail that was actually quite heavy and ended in the height of a grown man’s face. Chad loved to sneak up on an umpire before the game, do stuff with him or beg for a baseball, and when he got one, he would triumphantly present it to some kids close by, in the process turning around sharply and slapping the tail into the ump’s face. Umpires were resenting his act by now, and I was resenting the shrieking children.

The Monday before the All Star Game, Chad was alone in the empty park, safe for a groundskeeper or two, and did some dance moves on the home team’s dugout in the costume. Intoxicated by glue of course. At some point he fell off the dugout, onto the steps into the dugout, and broke a leg. Being stuck in the costume, nobody heard his muffled screams until Slappy strolled by casually a few hours later in search of hidden liquor and could be bothered to call an ambulance.

Which is the right point to announce that we have a *temporary* job opening for anybody interested. Only requirements are no life skills, nor any self-esteem.

Raccoons (40-48) vs. Canadiens (40-47) – July 11-14, 2002

And just like that the Raccoons were ranked behind the Elks, and it probably wasn’t going to get any better now that the focus of the action shifted to the Willamette. Much the opposite, I now had that vile smell in my nose.

Projected matchups:
Carl Bean (8-8, 4.26 ERA) vs. Joe Hollow (6-5, 2.51 ERA)
Nick Brown (4-6, 2.83 ERA) vs. Jose Dominguez (8-4, 4.47 ERA)
Randy Farley (6-7, 3.90 ERA) vs. Juan Bello (4-8, 4.83 ERA)
Bob Joly (2-4, 2.81 ERA) vs. Cal Holbrook (4-9, 7.84 ERA)

Ralph Ford was still not right, and probably would not be until next week. Whether he can make the start on Monday vs. the Indians is uncertain right now. We might want to save up Ricardo Huerta to make a spot start.

Game 1
VAN: SS Simon – CF Wheaton – RF Velasquez – 1B I. Gutierrez – LF J. Durán – 3B Sutton – 2B Phillips – C Hurtado – P Hollow
POR: 2B Palacios – CF Reece – LF Roberson – 1B Martin – 3B Sharp – RF Brady – SS Matthews – C Fifield – P Bean

Hollow faced Bean with three men on and two out in the bottom 2nd. After getting him to 1-2, Hollow unleashed a wild one that scored Brady for the first run of the game, and then Bean singled into right on a 3-2 pitch to get to a 2-0 score. Bean was doing so-so, and mostly benefited from the Canadiens playing ball the Raccoons’ way. They had a runner on third with two outs in the second, third, fourth, and fifth innings – and went 0-4. With a man on already, Hollow drew a 2-out walk off Bean in the seventh, only for Arthur Simon to strike out. The Raccoons weren’t doing all that much after the second inning. In the bottom of the seventh, Matthews was on first after a single with one out and Bean batting. Bean failed to bunt twice, then got a reluctant swing sign. He swung, and doubled past the reach of Jorge Durán. That gave the top of the lineup two in scoring position, only for both Palacios and Reece to make poor outs. Bean got stuck in the eighth, and left with the tying runs in scoring position. With the lefty Raymond Sutton up, it was a matter of putting him on intentionally and go to a proper pitcher, or call on Diaz. Well, bases loaded, with our walk-happy right-handers… um, no. Diaz it was, and Sutton struck out. No help was coming forth for the Raccoons in the bottom 8th, leaving it to Nordahl to protect a 2-0 lead. He started out by walking Jim Phillips, before Ramón Trinidad grounded the first pitch for a double play. Nordahl then struck out Jerry Dobson. 2-0 Coons. Reece 2-4; Brady 1-2, BB; Matthews 2-3; Bean 7.2 IP, 8 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 5 K, W (9-8) and 2-3, 2B, RBI;

The only other hit we had was a Martin single. The Raccoons in mid-to-late June for a while had their noses at the bottom edge of the upper half of the CL in runs scored, but were now crashing violently.

Game 2
VAN: SS Simon – 2B Dobson – LF Trinidad – RF Velasquez – 3B Phillips – 1B D. Davis – CF J. Durán – C Hurtado – P Dominguez
POR: 2B Palacios – CF Reece – LF Roberson – 1B Martin – RF Brady – 3B Sharp – SS Ingall – C Fernandez – P Brown

Brown started out getting to two strikes on almost anybody, but that didn’t mean he was flawless, drilling Doug Davis in the second inning. Nevertheless, through the first two innings he fanned four. Although Clyde Brady gave him the lead with a solo shot in the bottom 2nd, things quickly turned for the worse for the 11th round wunderkind. He was at 62 pitches through three innings, and the Elks loaded the bases with no outs in the fourth on a walk and two singles. Pedro Hurtado killed their inning with a run-scoring double play and Dominguez was easily retired, but the game was tied. His efficiency was in the trash, however, and Brown was at 102 pitches through five, but managed to complete a rather less dragging sixth. Not that it helped him any: the scrubs weren’t scoring, as simple as that. Marcos Bruno was quickly tagged with a run in the seventh and had to be dug out by Rodriguez of all people. Neil Reece set a little light in another evening of catastrophic failing, re-knotting the score with a 2-out homer in the bottom 8th, and when the Elks didn’t score in the top 9th, we had a chance to walk off against Pedro Alvarado. Al Martin led off, grounded the first pitch to second, and Iván Gutierrez couldn’t come up with Arthur Simon’s throw, which went into the dugout, and Martin was awarded second base. Flores ran for him. Brady walked, bringing up Sharp, who grounded sharply to third, where Sutton had to concede defeat, with Flores rapidly turning third base and making it home unimpeded. 3-2 Coons! Palacios 2-4; Brady 2-3, BB, HR, RBI; Rodriguez 1.1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 0 K;

Game 3
VAN: SS Simon – CF Wheaton – RF Velasquez – 1B I. Gutierrez – LF J. Durán – 2B Dobson – 3B Sutton – C Hurtado – P Bello
POR: 2B Palacios – CF Reece – RF Brady – 1B Martin – 3B Sharp – SS Ingall – LF Parker – C Fifield – P Farley

I was ready to storm down there and chain Farley into a coma as early as the second inning, when he issued a walk to Durán with one out, then misfielded Dobson’s grounder for an error, and walked Sutton. But Randy recovered, striking out Hurtado, and Bello lifted a rather easy fly out to Reece. He would have trouble again with the same part of the lineup in the fourth before exiting with a K to Hurtado. After a few deep fly outs in the first, the Raccoons went like glue and not beyond the infield dirt until the fourth, when Marvin Ingall put up the first run with a homer to left. But Farley soon found trouble. Juan Bello led the fifth off with a single, and while Ingall and Palacios both snagged line drives, Farley surrendered another single and finally 2-run double to Gutierrez, and the Elks threatened again in the sixth, but left runners on the corners. They stranded two more (Fifield error-aided) runners in the seventh, which was as deep as Farley went. The Raccoons did not threaten safe for the accidental explosion. We left two on in the bottom 7th, then started the bottom 8th with singles by Martin and Sharp, the latter just missed by Gutierrez. Ingall’s liner was shagged by Simon, before Parker singled, loading them up for an atrocious Fifield. Yes, he can hit them a mile, but right now he was only hacking. Roberson was on the bench and what better spot to use him? Roberson took a 2-1 pitch right to Dobson, but the Elks’ only play was at first, so the tying run scored. And then we had to give the biggest AB of the day to Pablo Fernandez (over Flores and McLaughlin), who flew out to center. Martinez took over pitching duties in a 2-2 game in the ninth, which had worked the day before, and ten pitches later it was on the offense again, starting with Palacios, and oh look, they have Alvarado out again! Palacios fired a liner into deep right, easily made it to second and to a .350 batting clip, and we wouldn’t have to run for this kid for sure. C’MON NEIL!! No, Reece whiffed, Brady walked and got forced on Martin’s grounder. That put Palacios at third for Sharp, who had walked the Coons off the previous day. Alvarado put two strikes on him, but Sharp made contact, a racing grounder to the left side, and nobody was even close to that one! 3-2 Coons! Palacios 3-5, 2B; Martin 2-4, BB; Sharp 2-5, RBI; Ingall 2-3, BB, HR, RBI; Parker 2-4; Farley 7.0 IP, 7 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 3 BB, 4 K and 1-2;

They are SO atrocious, it defies description. It is a picture words can’t paint. But we have found the recipe for success now: tie the opposition through eight, have Martinez do the top 9th, and manufacture it so Sharp can bat with the winning run in scoring position in the bottom of the inning.

Game 4
VAN: SS Simon – CF Wheaton – RF Velasquez – 1B I. Gutierrez – LF J. Durán – 2B Dobson – 3B Sutton – C Hurtado – P Dickerson
POR: 2B Palacios – RF Brady – CF Roberson – 1B Martin – 3B Sharp – SS Ingall – LF Flores – C Fifield – P Joly

Daniel Dickerson (4-5, 3.69 ERA) came off the DL to go instead of Cal Holbrook. He faced Bob Joly, who had of the type of games old people tell their grandchildren about, but are shivering while doing so. The Canadiens rushed him for two runs in the first inning, including a hit batter in Gutierrez. The Coons made up the deficit by the second, including a home run by Palacios, and in the top 3rd, Joly just melted completely. After Wheaton got on with a single, Joly was bombed by both Velasquez and Gutierrez, then drilled Durán with the next pitch. I took exception, Durán took exception, but Durán was quicker to the mound to rip Joly’s head right off. Not that I would mind. Both were ejected (or was it executed?), and here we were, having to piece together seven innings with a bullpen while avoiding Huerta, who might have to go on Monday. Well, Daniel Miller pitched three no-hit innings, which helped a good deal. Then he went out for the fourth, walked a man, and it all seemed to be innocent, and then Daniel Sharp made a CAPITAL error, and three runs scored in a hurry. The game was over, with the Raccoons playing dead for an hour before out of the blue two were on for Martin in the eighth and he doubled them in, ending Dickerson’s ride through deserted lands. No outs in the inning, Martin was never moved past second base and the Coons lost handily. 8-5 Canadiens. Palacios 2-5, HR, RBI; Roberson 3-4, 2 2B, RBI; Fifield 2-4, 2B, RBI; Miller 3.2 IP, 2 H, 3 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 1 K; Bruno 2.0 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K;

To be fair, I have waited for such a game from Bob Joly for a long time. That 2-ish ERA never seemed right.

In other news

July 14 – SAC C Lance Branch (.277, 8 HR, 29 RBI) is out for the rest of the month with a strained abdominal muscle.
July 14 – Veteran PIT INF Rodrigo Morales (.347, 2 HR, 40 RBI) is out for a month with a lat strain.

Complaints and stuff

So the Raccoons picked a few wins in the most excruciating manner out of their arses over the weekend, and sometimes you gotta say to yourself that a win is a win is a win, no matter how it came to be. Hey, at least the pitching was good! And we’re ahead of the Stinkers again.

Well, except Sunday. Sunday was Joly’s start, and Joly smelled.

He was suspended for two games, so essentially not at all, while in Tijuana things got REALLY ugly on Sunday, with Bartolo Román actually striking the Falcons’ Jesus Hernandez in the face before Hernandez took his knee into Román’s abdominal region. They couldn’t get the knives out since at that point both teams had pooled out of the dugout and piled up on top of them.

[Westheim]

It's still mid-July, so there's still time for trades - if just anybody could trade. With 22 teams overbudget, it's pretty much down to minimum salary players getting swapped. In addition to that, there are 30-some decent players lingering in free agency for no good reason (and will retire if they aren't signed by December 31). There's no reason for expecting the next offseason period to suddenly fix the issue.

I have two, maybe three, possible solutions in my head for this, all pretty much half-baked.

But if I want to see any trades during this season, I have to get it done now.

So, until I can work a way out of this mess, the Raccoons will go on hiatus. I can't tell whether it takes two days or five years. Nothing to see here right now, however.

[Questdog]

Good luck and here's hoping for a speedy return.

[Westheim]

Between having everything go on like it is and then worry in the offseason to monitor all players currently unsigned, and unretire a whole bunch next January 1, I have made up my mind and will instead manipulate all 24 teams' budgets right now.

I am debating over the amount of money, however. $1.5M for all teams would give ten teams into the green, with $1.7M it would be half of all teams. It will certainly be in that range somewhere.

This could push some division races around. F.e. the Loggers could lock up Takeru Sato to bolster their rotation while the Titans are so hideosly overbudget that twice the additional budget room wouldn't help them.

Of course, the Raccoons are currently only some $330k in the red, so we would have more than a million to spend all of a sudden. Since Coon City has suffered for a long time, but I would suffer forever plus 6,000 years if we would get back to the winning side of things through CHEATING, there will be house rules:

1. The Raccoons tried to dump salary and grab prospects by trading one of our big salary recipients. Until season's end, the Raccoons must not initiate a trade for this player regardless of the terms of the deal. The Raccoons may trade this player if another team proposes a trade FOR THAT PLAYER.

The player in question is Jesus Palacios.

2. The Raccoons must not sign one of Vince's current top 25 free agents unless at least four such free agents have been signed by other teams. After that they are free to pursue any free agents. Free agents out of this category are unlimited.

Free agents covered by that rule:
SP: Takeru Sato, Ramiro Gonzalez, John Woodard, Cipriano Miranda
MR: Albert Matthews, Bubba Cannon, Lawson Steward (inj), Manuel Saenz, Terry Harris, Sylvain Mendes, Tim Mallandain, George Moore, Jaime Feliz, Michael Campbell, Jose Torres, Jean-Loup David, Ben Carlson, Jason Turner
C: none
INF: Bob Butler, Roberto Quintero, Bob Rush, Steven MacKillop, Mauro Valdes
OF: Royce Green, Vincente Hernandez

3. Players listed under 2. that are not signed through December 31, and retire on January 1, 2003, will be manually unretired, unless they are at least 36 years old then.

Players not to be unretired: Lawson Steward, John Woodard, Jason Turner, Steven MacKillop

Note: I may or may not void the age clause when we hit New Year.

4. When the 2003 season offseason hits, I will see where the teams' total budgets compare to the teams' amended 2002 budgets. Should the aggregate 2003 budgets be lower than the amended 2002 budgets, I will go in and add an appropriate amount to all 24 teams' budgets. Then it will be a fixed percentage for each team, not a flat sum, so the Raccoons will not get a disproportionate advantage. I will continue to monitor the amount of money for the next seasons to take measures as far as necessary.

5. In addition to 4., I might manually adjust the national media revenue significantly, since this should get all teams an advantage. I still don't know whether this should be done on the last day of the season or the first day of the offseason.

With all these measures, I hope I can keep this league playable, because as things are now, things are hairy, and threatening to stumble into a bear trap. If players like Takeru Sato are left over, something is WRONG and has to be fixed.

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Still need to mull over this for a day or so. Next update should come at some point this weekend. I'm actually itching to go. The main attraction, wacky control or not, for me is currently Brownie, who is on pace to smother Kisho Saito's franchise single season K mark of 193, set 17 years ago. He has 132 K now, and might get about 14 more starts.

[Questdog]

Originally Posted by Westheim

5. In addition to 4., I might manually adjust the national media revenue significantly, since this should get all teams an advantage. I still don't know whether this should be done on the last day of the season or the first day of the offseason.

You want to adjust it BEFORE the season ends. When the season clicks over to the off-season is the only time the amount set is relevant. This is when all teams' budgets for the next year are set.

Sounds like you have a reasonable plan.

Edit: Also, if you want all the teams to take advantage of the new national media setting, you'll need to make sure they are all in the last year of their contract. Set it to 1 for each team BEFORE the season ends. (Don't ask me why teams have individual contract lengths for the national media contract)