The SoapBoxers

You may have seen the Cheerios commercial where the cute kid dumps the Cheerios on the dad.  Many people have seen the ad and reacted with outrage – because it features a biracial family.  Next year marks the 60th anniversay of the landmark Brown vs. Board of Education decision and it appears that there are still many who are fighting for segregation of races.  Segregation of races in a TV commercial, no less.  We have serious problems in society, but there are people who consider the mixing of the races to be an import issue???

I love the fact that I entered college just as the internet was exploding in popularity.  I have met a great many people online over the years.  I met people from the inside out.  In the early days, digital cameras and scanners weren’t nearly as common as they are today, so you might chat with people on a regular basis for weeks or years without knowing what they look like.  Even today, I am a teleworker for a very large company and almost exclusively interact with people via audio conference.  It’s not uncommon for me to work with someone off and on for several years before I meet them in person.  You’ve heard the phrase “it’s what’s inside that counts.”  That’s what I’m interacting with – the person’s ideas and personality.

Socially, my preferences is to interact with people who share interests with me.  Race, gender, sexual orientation are irrelevant.  If you have an interest in baseball, dinosaurs, or true crime, I’ll want to chat with you.  I want to interact with your mental characteristics, not your physical attributes.

Rockies

The playoff hopes of the Rockies took a hit when shortstop Troy Tulowitzki broke a rib on Thursday the 13th.  Tulo, who was in the midst of an MVP-caliber season, will be out until at least mid July.  The Rockies are currently just a half game behind division leading Arizona.  The Rockies need to find a way to tread water while Tulo is out.  Help may be on the way in the form of Roy Oswalt.  Oswalt was signed to a minor league deal recently, and was sharp in his last outing for AA Tulas, suggesting that he may be in like for a promotion to the big league.  Drew Pomeranz may be close behind him.

Pringles

I’ve been a longtime addict of Pringles.  I could easily eat an entire can at a sitting.  However, I am now cured of this addiction.  Kellogg recently bought Pringles from Procter & Gamble.  In addition to jacking around with the size of the container, they’ve also changed the taste of Pringles.  The taste that I was addicted is gone … replaced by a “blah” taste.  The winner in all of this is Frito-Lay, as Funyuns have jumped to the top of the heap.

Rockies rookie third baseman Nolan Arenado had four hits and scored three runs Wednesday night.  However, his achievement – noteworthy any other time it would have occurred – became barely a footnote.  Shortstop Troy Tulowitzki had five hits, including two home runs.  Carlos Gonzalez had only three hit – but all of them were home runs as he drove in six runs.

Rockies hitters are often perceived as paper champions, since they play half their games in Coors Field.  However, Gonzalez is actually posting better numbers at home than on the road this year.  Tulowitzki is hitting better at home (he has a robust .404 batting average at home), his road OPS is .974.  If you completely threw away his home stats and just used his road stats (and bear in mind that most hitters perform somewhat better at home), he would still rank sixth in MLB in OPS (his overall OPS has him third, behind Chris Davis and Miguel Cabrera).  Remember that this is a guy who plays a premium defensive position and plays it well.  There are only two shortstops who rank in the top 36 in OPS (Jean Segura is the other).

 

Manager Walt Weiss has been giving Tulo periodic days off, in hopes that it will stave off injuries that have befallen him in the past.  I’ll happily sacrifice and extra half dozen of so off days if it keeps him healthy.

Do you feel a draft?

Major League baseball’s draft begins tonight.  The two top pitchers in this year’s class are Mark Appel (a pell) and Jonathan Gray.  Earlier this week, Gray made news by testing positive for Adderall, a drug for which he does not have a prescription.  Adderall is a substance that is banned by MLB unless a player has an exemption.  Since the positive test came before Gray was drafted, he won’t face a suspension.  However, many wonder how this will affect his draft stock.

Some people have suggested that it may be MORE likely that the Astros will take him #1 overall.  Why?  Because he may now command less money, leaving more money from their draft pool to sign later picks.  Just a thought, but if a positive drug test enhances a player’s draft stock, maybe this isn’t a good thing?  I don’t blame the Astros – it’s baseball hard slotting system that is forcing these types of decisions.  The interesting thing is that the amount of money a team saves is probably less than the money the Dodgers are paying Andruw Jones not to play for them ($3.2 million) or what the Royals are paying journeyman Bruce Chen ($4.5 million) to play for them.  They may save a few bucks on the front end, but are they chasing talented athletes away to other sports?

Other notes

• After a pedestrian April, Mike Trout his .327 with 8 homers and 8 steals in May.
• Remember Justin Upton?  After 12 dingers in April, he had two in May en route to a dismal .654 OPS (compared to 1.136 in April).  So don’t engrave that MVP trophy quite yet.
• Domonic Brown has long been an enigma for Phillies fans who were frustrated as his inability to reach his potential.  After a blah April, he hit 12 homers in May.  Oddly, he walked zero times (compared to 9 walks in April) and became the first player in history to hit ten homers and have zero walks in the same month.
• The third best winning percentage in the American League, behind Boston and Texas, belongs to the Oakland A’s.
• The Astros are 8-2 in their last ten games and are six games better than MLB-worst Miami.  They won’t be confused with a playoff contender anytime soon, but they have a shot to not be a laughingstock.  Kudos to manager Bo Porter and his guys.
• Miami is on pace for 43 wins.  As we inch closer to the midway point in the season, they may actually be a credible threat to the 1962 Mets record of just 40 wins in a 162 game season (the Mets were 40-120, with two games rained out).
• Atlanta has a 7.5 game lead in the NL East, by far the largest in baseball.  Nobody else has a lead of greater than 2.5 games.  Despite all their woes, the second place team in the NL East is the Phillies (thanks, Domonic Brown).