Joe Maddon says Adell falling down on Sunday was “simply a slip.” This makes sense as far as it goes. I’d hate to think he fell down on purpose. For his own part, Jo Adell says he intends to get his swagger back. David Fletcher and Tommy La Stella both made it into the top 10 second basemen in Major League Baseball. So the Angels pitchers are making marginal adjustments and that is what is going to put us over the top. Now they say the Packy Naughton injury is a flexor pronator strain.
Mickey Callaway
The Angels are at least impliedly called offseason losers for “enabling the culture.” Meanwhile, Sandy Alderson says the Mets were short sighted in hiring Mickey Callaway. These stories suggest to me that we may be about to get some sort of announcement in the investigation by MLB.
Links From Around Baseball
Trey Mancini got a standing ovation in his first game back after recovering from colon cancer. He got a hit in his first at bat. The presence of fans, even a very few fans, is drawing positive reactions from the ball players. Hunter Dozier got a 4 year $25 Million extension from the Royals. Cal Ripkin Jr.’s mother Vi has passed away at the age of 82.
Photo credit: Rex Fregosi
we should be filing this under ‘old news’ right? https://www.insider.com/albert-pujols-lying-about-his-age-2021-3
the sentence of ‘no one knew in the organization/baseball’ is about as believable as when we get the update from the angels that a pitchers just experiencing soreness and will back soon
Old news maybe, but holy shit someone went on the record with an extended quote. Fuuuuuck.
less and less rocks to uncover. time to right ships or go down sinking
Hohohohohohokam!!!
Shohei is pitching Frdiay and that’s the one away game i picked up for this Spring.
Take lots of pictures! Enjoy!
Awesome Rex !!!! I can’t wait until all the covidy stuff is behind us and I can take my kid to spring training, hopefully next year.
I just read this evening’s game will be an 8 inning affair. Crazy. Heaney to pitch, Rodriguez and Detmers, too. All according to Fabian.
Is there any rhyme or reason for inning numbers?
As much rhyme or reason as Manfred can muster.
I like how I’m halfway upset at blowing a 4 run lead and ending with a tie in the 2nd spring game. And a 5 inning game that was more like a scrimmage. As if the result was more important than Ohtani getting two hits, Trout and Pujols looking good.
Eric – I totally agree from an overall scrimmage standpoint. I think the upset comes from watching the blo-pen let leads go for the last 5 seasons. So your reaction (and mine) was out of proportion to reality. It was anger and frustration built up over years of futility.
Exactly. Blown leads/games have haunted us for years. Yesterday was a stark reminder of that.
it is just as infuriating for me too when its been a known problem. we need help pitching has been among the more popular angels articles lately as we are wasting mike trouts career.
Long article in The Athletic about Callaway’s history of skeevy behavior when he was with Cleveland. Getting nicknamed “Dick Pic Mick” should be some kind of red flag, don’t you think?
Was frigg’n Joe’s idea to bring the pervert onboard, time to be transparent and drill Carpino how this could happen under his watch.
I think you’re making an assumption that there is actually a watch. The Athletic article states that Mickey interviews quite well. People up and down Cleveland’s org were impressed with him and the Mets said they had their guy after his first interview. But that’s not a watch.
A watch would be doing an actual investigation into a person before hiring him. Based on the apparent widespread knowledge of his behavior, that does not appear to have been done. At all. Personally I’d have some off the record talks with reporters, ask if there’s anything that maybe didn’t get published that could later haunt me.
Exactly. It’s one big fraternity. Failure or being a deviant is not disqualifying behavior. Not even getting caught cheating (see AJ Hinch) is disqualifying anymore.
See also: Cora, Alex
Seems like a hell of a lot happens under his watch. Every year there’s some sort of scandal with this franchise.
nickname made me laugh out loud! Hope you’re doing well Jim, you sent me 2 tickets to last years ST rockies game. Does the organization get any more benefit of the doubts anymore?
With that nickname people had to have known there was a problem, at least people up to the manager level and you would think a GM would here the rumors.
Hey- I’m OK, didn’t get any tix for this year unfortunately. We get our second shot tomorrow, and at the end of the month we’re heading to Vegas, baby! Reading the article today in the Athletic makes me think the red flags around this guy were like 300 feet tall and flapping in the breeze. There’s such a thing as due diligence, after all. None was applied here.
Glad you’re well Jim, vegas will be fun!!
As an Angels fan, there is a lot left to be desired… on the field, organizationally, in the community, etc.
A small poem that expresses my frustration with the bullpen going back several years. My focus here is Bard but it could easilbe written about others.
Pard-on
But I don’t like Luke
Bard-on
This team
Whew. With the current suspension of our seedy pitching coach and his penchant for selfies, I actually thought your poem was going in a much different direction.
https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2021/03/mickey-callaway-harassment-complaint-investigation-indians-mets-angels.html
I may have to get a subscription to The Athletic as I’m sure they will have a full in depth investigation, and this doesn’t look good for Callaway and both The Indians and Mets organizations.
For the love of Gah can we please just fire this guy? It’s not like they are going to find that this was all an elaborate misunderstanding.
No kidding, but unfortunately in our litigation society they have to wait until the investigation is done, statements are gathered and signed, etc. before they can fire him, otherwise they are in for 5 to 8+ years of litigation. It would be easy if he just resigned and took responsibility for his actions, gave the MLB his heartfelt apology, enrolled in sexual harassment classes, and turned his life around, then maybe he would be allowed back into baseball in 10 years as long as he kept his nose clean.
It’s not “his nose” he needs to keep clean….
Just sayin’
We can’t. He’s denied allegations, therefore we have to have a full investigation.
Yep, he is fighting to get paid under his contract.
I’ve said it before – the guy is a serial philanderer. This is all about Callaway walking away with coin in his pocket.
I enjoy my subscription.
I’d summarize the new article as everyone knew he cheated on his wife as often as he possibly could. To the point he took another woman on a road trip to Detroit and she stayed in his hotel room. He also had an affair out in Phoenix during Spring Training and when the other lady’s husband found out he called the team numerous times to complain both about the affair and some “unsolicited pornography” Mickey had sent her. Cleveland had an attorney speak to the husband. So Cleveland 100% knew about the infidelity and it was the latter incident the Mets were made aware of after they hired him because the same husband called the Mets.
Less clear is if any female employee actually told the brass about unwanted solicitations, texts, pics, etc. This lack of direct “I told the boss” statement from any of the women interviewed is probably why Mickey can hold onto his stance of his infidelity being consensual and away from the field. But, anyone who has worked in an office environment knows that word gets out about people so I have a hard time believing the top level personnel didn’t know a thing.
My gut feeling is that infidelity is common enough in pro sports that teams don’t care until/unless it creates drama. Had Mickey been picking up floozies at hotel bars, nothing would have been know. But the manner in which Mickey pursues women is at issue and there seems to be an established pattern of unwanted attention and pictures. In short, there’s no way I’d want my wife or sister working in the same organization as him.
Great comment and summarization of the Athletic article.
I am genuinely interested in how ‘we’ collectively react to changes of once not talked about subjects (bullying, drug use, misogyny) being brought to light and not accepted (even in the ‘locker room’) and if/what actually changes.
Thanks.
IMO the “boys will be boys” narrative is basically over as a way to excuse bad behavior. Boys can be boys and chase girls without sending pics of their junk or harassing them. Boys can still be boys and play a child’s game for a living, make crude jokes at each others expense, pull pranks on each other, but not straight up bully or threaten.
Most importantly, men need to be real men and step up when things are wrong. Admit wrongs, try to stop behavior that hurts others, report such behavior if it isn’t under your control.
That’s pretty much how I’ll raise my son, anyway. Have fun, but most importantly have respect and class.
more of this please
Thanks but that’s really just the way my dad raised me. And the way his dad raised him.
Honestly, more dads raising kids would solve a ton of what ails society.
can’t control that (parents raising kids). Environment and deviance of normalcy have a role to play as well. It starts young (wow this kid is really good at xyz… they aren’t held to the same accountability/ownership as those ‘average’ kids) and continues until that line is too well crossed. Most with talent get surrounded by yes people (parents can only control peers and peer pressure so much) who aren’t equipped at actually helping a human develop, thus exacerbating and perpetuating all these behaviors that get played out as being obviously bad.
I meant having an involved dad in general, not just talented kids. A kid without a dad in the home is five times more likely to live in poverty, twenty times more likely to be incarcerated. Take a look a teen pregnancy, runaways, drug use, even school shooters and you’ll see an overwhelming percentage without dads in their lives.
Raising an extremely talented kid definitely raises new obstacles. Ones I honestly hadn’t really considered until this. But countless parents have done it before so it can be done. And if society truly has enough of the bad behavior they can stop paying to watch the players. I’ve cut off the NFL package because I simply can’t justify supporting so many of those players.
I definitely see your point on having a dad in the home. Not sure I was making any point as much as just typing out random thoughts. Nice to be able to do here.
That was an awesome random thought. Made me really think about the fact my son won’t always be 3 and will someday have other influences on his life and character. I was blessed to have some great influences, and that has helped tremendously in whatever success I’ve had being a decent human.
Thanks. Glad it wasn’t typo filled and actually legible 😉
Interesting update from eric in portland with terry francona’s kid. I think the grass is always greener applies but how many of us would have given up ___ to be a bat boy, let alone have a big league whatever in the household?!
These problems, mainly of machismo professions (military, police, fire, professional sports operationally and in the office, politicians, etc) being exposed for what they are (cesspools of poor leadership/bad decision making with no/little repercussions), are so well rooted it will take a lot for it to change (for our kids). The its I’m talking about: isn’t fiers still seen as a snitch by some; others would give an impeccable review to another organization about a known delinquent in this, that, the other?
I’m no fan of the promiscuous lifestyle, but if that’s your thing and everything is between clearly consenting adults, then fine. But don’t get married and have kids and mess around on your family, and don’t pursue partners who have families. It’s immature and causes a ton of emotional pain and stress.
I’m not going to pretend I was a choir boy when I was younger, but there are ways to play the field a bit and still have some respect. Consent and honesty are key, not ruining families is critical.
But back in my day I’d ask a girl for her phone number, not get it from HR at work. I’d take a hint when I didn’t get a phone call or text back. And the thought of sending nude pics never once crossed my mind. Mickey apparently doesn’t understand these things. Hence the difference between being known as a flirt and as a creep.
When I hear “boys will be boys” I think about the time a friend bet my brother he couldn’t jump his bike over his car when they were teens. They built a ramp against the advice of smarter people, and he proceeded to break his arm.
It won’t be women most men listen to on this topic, so thank you for using your voice, Jeff.
Ha ha. Have a couple of those stories, minus the broken arm.
What exactly does a floozy look like? Can she pitch?
Sweet Jebus, Callaway is an absolute train wreck of a human.
https://sports.yahoo.com/report-mickey-callaways-widespread-predatory-behavior-worst-kept-secret-in-baseball-163408018.html
You mean you didn’t call up an old flame days before your wedding?
Dude clearly has some major issues. I’m truly interested to know what his dad was like. A lot of times this is learned behavior, see Woods, Tiger.
a similar article which contains a fascinating look at Terry Francona from his son
https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/mickey-callaway-allegations-cleveland-brass-was-aware-of-sexually-inappropriate-behavior-per-report/
Yikes.
5:05pm PST start today. Plan accordingly.
The rare spring night game.
Heaney’s first start of 2021.