Thoughts and pictures of my local minor league baseball team the New York Penn League Connecticut Tigers; a Detriot farm team. We'll still be looking at former Navigators/Defenders players along the way....

Monday, February 28, 2011

Putting Feb. 2011 into the books...Fantasy trade...




First fantasy trade of the season: I traded Buster Posey (.305 18 HR 65 RBI 58 runs) and Cliff Lee, he who shuns the Yankees (12-9 3.18 ERA 185 Ks 1.00 WHIP)

for:

Mike Napoli (.238 26 HR 68 RBI 60 runs) and Carlos Gonzalez (.336 34 HR 117 RBIs 111 runs 26 SB)

I have plenty of pitching and needed to beef up my offense. My first offer was Lee for Gonzalez straight up. Counter offer was CC and Posey for Gonzalez and Napoli. My counter offer was what we ended up with. I couldn't part with CC. A trade that helps both rosters...

Sunday, February 27, 2011

RIP the Duke of Flatbush....AP story below...



"Duke Snider, the Hall of Fame center fielder for the charmed “Boys of Summer” who helped the Dodgers bring their elusive and only World Series crown to Brooklyn, died Sunday. He was 84.

Snider died at the Valle Vista Convalescent Hospital in Escondido, Calif., said the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, which announced the death on behalf of the family. Snider had been ill for months. His family said he died of natural causes.

“The Duke of Flatbush” hit .295 with 407 career home runs, played in the World Series six times and won two titles. But the eight-time All-Star was defined by much more than his stats—he was, after all, part of the love affair between the borough of Brooklyn and “Dem Bums” who lived in the local neighborhoods.

Ebbets Field was filled with stars such as Pee Wee Reese, Roy Campanella and Gil Hodges during that 1955 championship season. Yet it is Snider’s name that refrains in the ballpark favorite “Talkin’ Baseball.”

“Willie, Mickey, and the Duke,” goes the popular song, which marks its 30th anniversary this year.

Snider wore No. 4 in Dodger blue and was often regarded as the third-best center fielder in New York—behind Willie Mays of the Giants and Mickey Mantle of the Yankees—during what many fans considered the city’s golden era of baseball.

“The newspapers compared Willie, Mickey and I, and that was their thing,” Snider said several years ago. “As a team, we competed with the Giants, and we faced the Yankees in the World Series. So we had a rivalry as a team, that was it. It was an honor to be compared to them, they were both great players.”

Mantle died in 1995 at age 63. Mays, now 79, threw out a ceremonial ball last fall before a playoff game in San Francisco.

Commissioner Bud Selig called Snider an “integral part of Dodger history” and part of an “unparalleled triumvirate of center fielders” in New York.

“Then the Los Angeles native went home and helped usher in a new part of baseball history with great class,” he said in a statement.

Former teammate Don Zimmer played with Snider for five years.

“Duke never got the credit of being the outfielder that Mays and Mantle were. … But Duke was a great outfielder. He was a great player,” he said.

Snider hit at least 40 home runs in five straight seasons and led the NL in total bases three times. He never won an MVP award, although a voting error may have cost him the prize in 1955. He lost to Campanella by a very narrow margin— it later turned out an ill voter left Snider off the ballot, supposedly by mistake.

Carl Erskine was Snider’s roommate for 10 years and the two shared a house at spring training in Vero Beach, Fla., with their families

“Duke played so great when I pitched,” he recalled. “He just made so many plays in the World Series for me, and he seemed to play his best when I pitched.”

Snider hit .309 with 42 homers and a career-high 136 RBIs in 1955. That October, he hit four homers, drove in seven runs and hit .320 as the Dodgers beat the Yankees in a seven-game Series.

For a team that kept preaching “Wait till next year” after World Series losses to the Yankees in 1953, ’52, ’49, ’47 and ’41, it was indeed next year. A generation later, long after they’d all grown old, those Dodgers were lauded as the “Boys of Summer” in Roger Kahn’s book.

“He was the true Dodger and represented the Dodgers to the highest degree of class, dignity and character,” Dodger Hall of Fame Manager Tommy Lasorda said.

Orlando Cepeda, a Hall of Famer with the Giants, said Snider provided one of his biggest thrills when he broke into the majors in 1958.

“When I came to first base, the opening game, he said to me, ‘Orlando, good luck, good luck,”’ Cepeda said. “He was one of my idols. I almost fainted.”

Born Edwin Donald Snider, he got his nickname at an early age. Noticing his son return home from a game with somewhat of a strut, Snider’s dad said, “Here comes the Duke.”

The name stuck. So did Snider, once he played his first game in the majors in 1947, two days after Jackie Robinson’s historic debut.

A durable slugger with a strong arm, good instincts on the bases and a regal style, Snider hit the last home run at Ebbets Field in 1957.

Snider’s swing gave the Dodgers a lefty presence on a team of mostly righties. He often launched shots over the short right-field wall at the Brooklyn bandbox, rewarding a waiting throng that gathered on Bedford Avenue. “The Duke’s up,” fans in the upper deck would shout to those on the street.

Snider had a wild swing that was harnessed by Branch Rickey, who made him practice standing at home plate with a bat on his shoulder calling balls and strikes but forbidden to swing.

Snider stayed with the Dodgers when they moved to Los Angeles in 1958 and won another World Series ring the next year. Prematurely gray, “The Silver Fox” returned to New York with the bumbling Mets in 1963 and finished his career in 1964 with the Giants.

“Above it all, he was a fan favorite for his style of play, personality, accessibility, and fondness for playing stickball with kids in the street of Brooklyn,” Hall of Fame President Jeff Idelson said.

Snider was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1980 on his 11th try. He was a broadcaster for the Montreal Expos for several seasons—he played in the city as a minor leaguer in the Brooklyn farm system—and later was an announcer with the Dodgers.

“He had the grace and the abilities of DiMaggio and Mays and, of course, he was a World Series hero that will forever be remembered in the borough of Brooklyn,” Hall of Fame broadcaster Vin Scully said. “Although it’s ironic to say it, we have lost a giant.”

Marty Brennaman, also a Hall of Fame broadcaster, added: “If you met him, you would never had any idea that he carved out the kind of career for himself that he did.”

In 1995, Snider pleaded guilty to federal tax charges and was sentenced to two years’ probation and fined $5,000. He admitted not reporting more than $97,000 in cash from autograph signings, card shows and memorabilia sales.

Snider was sentenced at the Brooklyn federal courthouse, a few miles from where he had starred. The judge said Snider had been “publicly disgraced and humiliated … here in Brooklyn, where you were idolized by a generation … of which I was one.”

Snider apologized. He said he began making autograph appearances because he had little in savings and had made several bad business decisions. The judge said Snider paid nearly $30,000 in back taxes and noted he had diabetes, hypertension and other illnesses.

A native Californian, Snider became part of Brooklyn’s fabric during his playing days.

“I was born in Los Angeles,” he once said. “Baseballwise, I was born in Brooklyn. We lived with Brooklyn. We died with Brooklyn.”

The Duke, however, had some early problems with the boisterous Brooklyn fans.

Once, in the early 1950s, he was quoted as calling them the worst in the game. He came to the park after the quote was published and was greeted with a chorus of boos. But he enjoyed one of his better nights, and silenced the fans for good.

“The fans were something.” Snider said. “They were so close to you. You got to know them, some of them by name.”

During his playing career, Snider became an avocado farmer and lived many years in Fallbrook, Calif.

He is survived by his wife, Beverly, whom he married in 1947.

Funeral arrangements are pending.

Zimmer lamented another Dodger gone.

“They’re all passing away,” he said. “There’s not many left.”"

Contributing to this report were AP Sports Writers Janie McCauley in San Francisco; Tom Withers in Goodyear, Ariz.; Michael Marot in Indianapolis; Fred Goodall in Tampa, Fla.; Steven Wine in Jupiter, Fla.; and Dave Skretta and Ronald Blum in New York.

Yankees on YES, new fantasy baseball team...


just drafted and the hopefully the last snow fall of the year today....

Saturday, February 26, 2011

Dave....



never really got it going

Friday, February 25, 2011

Brian...

Thursday, February 24, 2011

One of four Navs/defs pitchers..




to have homered...

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

CT Tigers are conducting a Fan Focus meeting...



Thursday at 6:30 at Dodd, upstairs at the Dodd. I'm unable to attend but I just forwarded some thoughts along. I encourage everyone to attend or email your ideas/suggestion to the Tigers or express them here and I'll will do it for you.

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

TI....

Monday, February 21, 2011

back to back Alex....



UCONN wins 16-9

Sunday, February 20, 2011

More like 15K tops at the Rent last night...



as the wind chill made conditions pretty tough....

Saturday, February 19, 2011

Can't believe I forgot to post yesterday....



anyway UCONN loses it's season opener to Purdue and some 32-34K are expected in East Hartford tonight as Whale Fest hosts an AHL game outdoors at the Rent.

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Good Luck to Jon Vertseeg!

Bees name voice for 2011 season - Monmouth, IL - Daily Review Atlas

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Always liked these uniforms....

Monday, February 14, 2011

TI....

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Steve!

Saturday, February 12, 2011

Friday, February 11, 2011

Thursday, February 10, 2011

I have this uni....

Wednesday, February 09, 2011

Best bat boy in history and.....



Bobby Crocker's son.

Tuesday, February 08, 2011

BH......

Monday, February 07, 2011

Simon sez....

Sunday, February 06, 2011

Carlos....

Saturday, February 05, 2011

A native of the Great White North...

Friday, February 04, 2011

Thanks Andy!!




Enjoy the next chapter of your life!

Thursday, February 03, 2011

Ben...

Wednesday, February 02, 2011

Bobby Crocker's son....

Tuesday, February 01, 2011

OK, this has happened to me twice in the last...



couple of weeks and given all the wonderful snow weve been getting it makes sense. Twice now I've had ads sent to me via email for MLB trips. Makes sense doesn't it? You're snow bound and what seems like the perfect tonic for that? A summer ball game right...