dusskml-blog - Tumblr blog

[dusskml-blog]

Hicks defaults on houston texans jerseys cheap

Baseball's off-season has been eerily quiet. Yes, there have been tiny ripples of action surrounding free-agent pitcher CC Sabathia, who was lectured by the New York Yankees for not jumping all over their $140m six-year contract offer, cheap nfl jerseys nike choosing instead to bide his time and flirt with other teams in his preferred west coast locales. Sure, Matt Holliday was dealt from the Colorado Rockies to the Oakland Athletics, whose owners have put a few more pennies in the pocket of their general manager, Billy Beane. Overall however, movement has been minimal and the majority of the measly 51 transactions have been underwhelming.

Dormant baseball fans have their fingers crossed that the upcoming winter meetings in Las Vegas will yield some badly needed hot stove scenarios - wheeling, dealing, and free-agent players signing the dotted line. Where will Manny Ramirez pop out of a cake: the Bronx, LA or elsewhere? cheap flight to new jersey newark Will the change in Washington extend to a Nationals team looking to swoop in on slugger Mark Teixeira? Can the Padres deal outbound ace pitcher Jake Peavy for anywhere near equal value? Will record-setting closer Francisco Rodriguez say adios to Anaheim? It could all begin next week, but keep in mind that movement at these meetings is not a given.

Neither is the future name of the Mets new ballpark, currently called Citi Field, or as some New Yorkers have started to call it, Bailout Field or Citi/Taxpayer Field (personally, I'd go with Touché Stadium, cheap signed jerseys which would be spelt Two Shea). Since US citizens have donated billions of dollars to the troubled Citibank, there's been a been a backlash brewing against the $400m naming rights deal that is supposed to keep the brand posted across the Flushing field for the next 20 years. Yesterday, we heard that the deal is supposedly safe.

"We think we can bring the right people to help them market their product so that they can be a going concern," the Mets chief operating officer, Jeff Wilpon, said. "It's not really Citi's fault that they're in this problem. There are a lot of other banks in the same situation."Hmm, custom seahawks jersey cheap I have to side with Jeff here. After all, how much of this financial meltdown actually has to do with the old boys down at Citibank anyway? Citi's bosses, tucked safely in their corner offices, are clearly nothing more than innocent bystanders in this mess.

But enough of this fiscal doom and gloom - let's move on to something a lot more fun, like Pirates. No, not the Somalian buccaneers pillaging through the Indian Ocean, but the slightly less lethal group from Pittsburgh. demarcus ware jersey cheap Who would believe that one of the more intriguing stories of baseball's off-season would belong to a Pirates organization that's had just four winning seasons in the past quarter-century? Even better, it's a global baseball tale, one that the likes of the Guardian, the BBC (it's always eye-popping to see baseball in or on the Beeb) and news agencies ran with last week.

The Hindustan Times also covered the story, and with good reason. Two Indians made history by becoming the first players from the subcontinent to sign professional baseball contracts when they inked deals with the Bucs last Monday. cheap apartment in new jersey Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel signed as undrafted free agents, and will ultimately be looking to become the first Asian players to suit up for Pittsburgh. So far the Pirates have been unable to tap any far eastern talent from more traditional baseball homes such as Japan and South Korea.

Let's just say that Bucs fans weren't making their World Series parade plans upon hearing the news. After all, san jose sharks jersey cheap frustrated faithful could be excused for thinking it's more of a gimmick than an actual battle plan. Still, you never know, apparently the pair can play; or, at least they can throw. Both Singh, 20, and Patel, 19, are pitchers that emerged from a pool of 37,000 to win an opportunity to train with an American pitching coach. The southpaw Singh was the overall victor in the reality television show called The Million Dollar Arm, although it's worth mentioning that his arm was actually worth just $100,000 - he didn't throw hard enough to claim the highest prize.

[dusskml-blog]

San Francisco Giants china cheap jerseys

Steinbrenner was a laughable figure in the comedy series Seinfeld with nothing funny about him. He was a generous man whose many donations we never heard about – as anyone who follows baseball has heard about constantly for the past 35 years – who was breathtakingly cruel and petty. cheap soccer jerseys for sale He was a great sportsman, suspended twice from baseball for breaking the rules and convicted for breaking the law. He was a great Yankee who infuriated and alienated the team's players and fans and insulted the Yankees' traditions and greatest legends. Advertisement Days before Steinbrenner, the beloved Yankee Stadium announcer Bob Sheppard died. Yankee fan websites are abuzz with variants on the theme that Steinbrenner had clung to life to wait for Sheppard to announce his arrival in heaven. Believe me, cheap nba jerseys from china if there is a heaven, George Steinbrenner won't be there.I covered the Yankees as a wire service reporter during the 1980s at the height – or depth – of Steinbrenner's reign of error. He spent lavishly, as always thanks to lavish team income, to assemble the best team money could buy, but the Yankees didn't win any titles. With his American football mentality – if he hadn't gotten rich from the family business, he would have become an itinerant assistant coach, wearing out his welcome at high schools across America after a year or two – Steinbrenner couldn't understand that baseball is a marathon, with a season of 162 games, not 16, and that no team can win every day. Steinbrenner's impatience led to bad choices, and his megalomania forbade him from taking responsibility for them. So he fired managers, general managers and even public relations directors, with comic frequency. cheap apartments in jersey city He dismissed the Yankees Hall of Famer Yogi Berra 16 games into the 1985 season, breaking an explicit promise that Berra had demanded before accepting the thankless manager's job. Berra, who played on a record 10 Yankee championship teams, refused to associate with the team until Steinbrenner apologised. He did – 14 years later. Leading baseball's salary explosion, Steinbrenner believed that paying players like supermen would make them play that way. When they failed – and even the best hitters fail more than 60% of the time – Steinbrenner assumed the right to berate and humiliate them. eagles jerseys cheap One late afternoon in the Yankee clubhouse in 1988, the captain, Don Mattingly, the quiet centre of team turbulence, launched a spontaneous outburst against Steinbrenner. "All they give you here is money," he said, bemoaning the lack of respect, courtesy and dignity on offer. The best player on those 1980s teams was Dave Winfield, signed to a record 10-year, $18m contract. Winfield was a superbly gifted athlete, drafted in three professional sports, and a classy, handsome, personable individual, among the first athletes to establish his own charitable foundation. I was convinced he'd be America's first black president. Advertisement Winfield compiled most of his Hall of Fame credentials as a Yankee, but Steinbrenner had signed him to replace Reggie Jackson, cheap team jerseys the self-styled Mr October (October being the month for the World Series). Winfield failed to get a hit in the Yankees' 1981 World Series loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers. Steinbrenner took it as a person insult. He derided Winfield as "Mr May". In 1988, Winfield set a record for driving in runs during April and told reporters: "Now it's on to May, and you know about me and May." cheap hockey jersey To get even with Winfield, and perhaps void his contract, Steinbrenner hired a lowlife named Howard Spira to spy on the player, hoping to find some dirt, particularly financial malfeasance, at the Dave Winfield Foundation. Spira got nothing on Winfield but lowered the boom on Steinbrenner. Spira wasn't just any lowlife, he was a chronic gambler. Since bookmakers paid off the Chicago White Sox (thereafter the Black Sox) to lose the 1919 World Series, gambling has been baseball's cardinal sin. Steinbrenner's sleazy association earned him his second suspension from the game – the first followed his conviction for making illegal campaign contributions to fellow football fan Richard Nixon – and, ironically, new orleans saints jerseys cheap set the stage for the Yankees to end their record post-season drought and create the dynasty that had eluded them under Steinbrenner's misrule. With Steinbrenner out of the way, the Yankees were able to develop young players rather than trade them away for veterans in hope of a quick fix. The core team that won four out of five straight World Series and reached the playoffs every year from 1995 through 2007, came together when real baseball professionals ran the franchise. Yet Steinbrenner was there front and centre to take credit for success while blaming others for failure. cheap chinese jerseys In his last gasp of conceit before formally ceding control of the team to his son Hank, Steinbrenner orchestrated the dismissal of manager Joe Torre, who'd led the Yankees to the postseason for 12 consecutive years. Over four decades, Steinbrenner embodied and popularised the values of America's culture of arrogance seen in the banishment of civility and fact from political discourse, the Iraq invasion – a US victory, according to much of the press – obscene executive pay, and the 2008 economic meltdown. Yes, George, you really were a Yankee Doodle Dandy.

[dusskml-blog]

Rangers seek first World Series cheap cycling jerseys

They won one each, and the Giants were 4-2 down in the final inning of the final game when Thomson stepped up. He faced pitcher Ralph Branca, whose role is as permanently etched into the story as Thomson's. cheap nike nfl jerseys The first pitch was a called-strike fastball. But Thomson hit the second and, as the Dodgers left-fielder, Andy Pafko, drifted back towards the wall, the ball sailed over his head into the seats for a three-run homer and an incredible 5-4 victory. "The Giants win the Pennant! The Giants win the Pennant!" exploded Hodges. Thomson and his side had done the impossible and appropriately, for an event that was to become folklore – the ball was never recovered, its whereabouts remain a mystery. That is where the fairy tale ended – the Giants lost the World Series 4-2 to the Yankees. The New York writer Red Smith said: "Now it is done. The art of fiction is dead. Only the impossible, the utterly fantastic, can be plausible again." And Thomson himself always claimed: "All it meant at the time was that we beat the Dodgers." Over the years, Thomson appeared with Branca at various events as the two acknowledged their role in baseball history. custom jerseys cheap At the 40th anniversary of the dramatic home run, Thomson, with typical generosity, praised Branca's character, saying: "Ralph didn't run away and hide." To which Branca responded: "I lost a game, but I made a friend." Not even a nasty injury that left the Guadalajara midfielder Omar Esparza on crutches could stop him joining the almost obligatory post-match brawl after the Mexican team lost the final of the Libertadores Cup, cheap nfl jerseys free shipping the South American equivalent of the Champions League, against Brazil's Internacional.As soon as the final whistle went, a couple of players had a go at each other, provoking a scrap that involved staff and players from both sides. TV and radio reporters on the field added to the chaos, while riot police joined in, too. Esparza's crutches were used as a weapon and, at one point, there was a tug-of-war between a Guadalajara player and a policeman who tried to confiscate them. Visiting players said the trouble started when a fan came on to the pitch at the end and spat at them. The Mexicans had arrived in a dark mood after losing the first leg 2-1 at home and were further aggrieved when the Brazilian band cut short the Mexican national anthem after only a few bars. eagles jersey cheap That prompted the Guadalajara striker Adolfo Bautista to do his stretching exercise during the Brazilian anthem – played in full – to the fury of the crowd. A group representing the barra bravas has asked the Argentine Football Association for recognition as "official club staff", aiming to change the prevailing culture of "violence and death" to one of "love and peace". The petition was made by the United Fan Organisation representing the 43 "violent supporter associations" cheap custom baseball jerseys of the First Division. The association is said to have the backing of Cristina Fernández's government – although that is officially denied. Spokesman Marcelo Mallo believes making the barra bravas legitimate will encourage "looking after people rather than fighting". And Lanus ultra Mariano González, deported on his arrival for the World Cup, cheap eagles jerseys explained that all the tough gangs have been lacking is some really good PR: "This is something we've been doing a good job with for many years but, sadly, it does not generate press coverage and nobody talks about it." Tiger Woods's half-brother weighed in with his opinions on the golfer's woes by calling a phone-in radio show last week. Earl Woods Jr, the eldest of Tiger's three siblings, cheap authentic jerseys from china phoned talk show The Herd and admitted he thought his brother was a "control freak" who likes "to have everything laid out in front of him and know what path he's gonna take". Earl told the show how Tiger "got himself in a world of hurt ... He was having to deal with a lot of difficult things", but insisted that his brother is "truly in love with Elin", adding: "I know that she has very strong feelings for him." His comments were widely reported in the US media, cheap baseball jersey most of whom gleefully noted that Earl Woods Jr has, by his own admission, not actually spoken to Tiger since 2006. George Steinbrenner was a loser. While insisting that nothing less than wining was acceptable, Steinbrenner owned the New York Yankees during the team's longest World Series drought since its first appearance in 1921, a dry spell directly attributable to Steinbrenner's insistent mismanagement. Steinbrenner, cheap nba basketball jerseys who died on Tuesday at age 80, was a bully and a brat, devoid of humility, class, and civility, born on third base, deluded that he'd hit a triple, and convinced he had to tell the whole world how he'd done it. Famed for his bombast and for making himself bigger than his players and team, tolerated only because he had money and power, this Yankee Doodle Dandy born on the Fourth of July paved the way for America to become a loser by his example. Just about every bit of praise eulogising Steinbrenner is 180 degrees wrong. The city's mayor, cheap custom football jerseys Michael Bloomberg, called him "a quintessential New Yorker" despite Steinbrenner hailing from Cleveland (Bloomberg's from Boston, weekends in Bermuda), living in Tampa, and blackmailing New Yorkers with threats to move the Yankees out of town to get a new $1.5bn (£1m) stadium that embodies his penchant for vulgar excess. He was a terrific businessman, a daring capitalist who insisted he needed public handouts for his billion-dollar family company; taxpayers underwrote the bonds for that new Yankee stadium and renovated the previous one, and have been rewarded with ticket prices that top out at $2,500.

[dusskml-blog]

against San Francisco Giant cheap youth jerseys

In 1951 New Yorkers knew they were at the centre of the world. So it hardly seemed hyperbolic that the dramatic home run hit by Bobby Thomson of the New York Giants baseball team to win the National League pennant from their crosstown rivals, the Brooklyn Dodgers, cheap soccer jerseys would be dubbed "the shot heard round the world". The phrase came from Ralph Waldo Emerson's poem Concord Hymn, celebrating "the embattled farmers" of Massachusetts, whose firing on British soldiers had sparked the American revolution. Baseball's shot came off the bat of a player born in Glasgow. Thomson, who has died aged 86, nfl jerseys cheap was two when he moved from Scotland to Staten Island, New York, where his father, a cabinet-maker, had emigrated. Baseball became his passion, and he signed with the Giants straight from high school in 1942. Wartime service in the air force interrupted his career, but he joined the Giants in 1947. The 1951 season became known as the Miracle of Coogan's Bluff, the site of the Giants' stadium, known as the Polo Grounds. Down by 13 games in mid-August, they won 37 of their last 44 matches to tie with Brooklyn and force a three-game playoff. Thomson was the key; his manager, Leo Durocher, soccer jerseys cheap a former Dodger, switched him to third base, adding more power to the outfield. The Giants won the first game, at the Dodgers' ground, Ebbetts Field. The Dodgers won the second at the Polo Grounds, and led 4-1 in the final inning of game three. Then, with the score 4-2 and two Giants on base, the Dodgers' manager Charlie Dressen called on Ralph Branca to pitch to Thomson. cheap nfl jerseys china Thomson drove Branca's second pitch into the left-field seats; the three-run homer won them the game. The radio announcer Russ Hodges's frantic repetitions of "the Giants win the pennant!" became almost as renowned as the hit itself. Red Smith, of the New York Herald Tribune, wrote: "Now it is done. Now the story ends. And there is no way to tell it. The art of fiction is dead. cheap china jersey Reality has strangl- ed invention. Only the utterly impossible, the inexpressibly fantastic, can ever be plausible again." Broadcast nationwide and to the Armed Forces network, as far away as Korea, Thomson's shot was indeed heard around the world. That night, he was offered $500 to appear on Perry Como's television show, but wanted to get home to see his family in Staten Island. The offer was then promptly raised to $1,000. "For a thousand bucks, the family can wait," he said. In the World Series the Giants faced the Yankees, whose stadium loomed across the Harlem river from the Polo Grounds. They lost, 4-2. Thomson continued as a hitter, but after his best season, 1953, baseball jerseys cheap he was traded to Milwaukee, and promptly broke an ankle, depriving him of speed and power. Traded back in 1957, for the Giants' last season before they left New York for San Francisco, he then played briefly for three more teams before ending his career in 1963 in Tokyo. Thomson was later a salesman for a paper-products company. In later years, he and Branca appeared as a travelling double act, donating much of their earnings to charity and becoming close friends. football jerseys cheap The ball he hit disappeared; its fate forms the core of Don DeLillo's novel Underworld (1997); the game itself can be heard on the car radio as Sonny Corleone is gunned down in the 1972 film The Godfather. In 2001, it was revealed that the Giants had stationed a coach in centre field with binoculars, to watch for the signs opposing catchers used to call for specific pitches. Thomson always denied being aided in this way against Branca. He said: "I can remember feeling as if time was just frozen. It was a delirious, delicious moment." Baseball fans mourned the death of Scottish-born Bobby Thomson last week – the player legendary for hitting the "shot heard round the world". Thomson, who died, aged 86, on Monday, hit the home run for the New York Giants against the Brooklyn Dodgers in the final match of 1951's play-off to secure a meeting with the New York Yankees in the World Series. cheap custom jerseys It was described in the New York Times as "perhaps the most dramatic moment in baseball history", and by the New York Daily News as "the granddaddy of them all". He was remembered by Giants team-mate Monte Irvin as "a great ball player, a great fella, beloved by all Giants' fans". Thomson was born in Glasgow in 1923 and was two years old when his father emigrated to New York. He grew up on Staten Island, signed with the Giants in 1942 as a right-handed batter with good power and excellent speed and was in his fifth full season for the team in 1951. The significance of his strike lay in a multitude of factors. It was between two fierce rivals, nfl cheap jerseys creating huge interest – broadcast coast-to-coast on TV and on the radio to US servicemen across the world. It was captured with unforgettable excitement in a play-by-play call by radio announcer Russ Hodges. And it was the thrilling culmination of an extraordinary season for the Giants – the moment when they finally grasped victory from the jaws of defeat having performed a remarkable comeback – known as the "Miracle of Coogan's Bluff" after the location of Giants' stadium, the Polo Grounds. In mid-season the Giants trailed the Dodgers by 13½ games, the Dodgers' manager, Chuck Dressen, famously proclaiming: "The Giants is dead." Too soon. They responded with a 16-game winning streak and tied for the National League lead on the final weekend: meaning a three-game play-off for the pennant and to reach the World Series.

[dusskml-blog]

Rangers seek first World cheap nba jerseys 4xl

The Giants won five world championships when they played in New York, but the move to the west coast in 1957 ended such trophy collecting. The San Francisco Giants have played in four World Series but are yet to win one. cheap packer jerseys For many years they could enjoy the individual batting glory of Barry Bonds, with his record-setting seven MVP awards and 762 home runs, including 73 in 2001, although he is now almost as well-known for drug allegations and long-running legal battles. The Rangers had never even won a post-season series until this year. cheap panthers jerseys But only 38 years of their half-century history have been spent in Texas, as the team were originally the Washington Senators. With delicious irony the Rangers reached their first World Series with Alex Rodriguez at bat for the Yankees. A-Rod was signed by the Rangers in 2001 on an eye-watering 10-year, $252m contract. At the time the club was owned by a venture capital billionaire, cheap patriots jerseys Tom Hicks, whose lack of sporting success (you may have read) was later transferred to Liverpool Football Club. So the World Series promises to deliver much in terms of history. But will it deliver on the field? The two biggest stars for the Rangers are the pitcher Cliff Lee and the outfielder Josh Hamilton. Lee only joined the Rangers mid-season from the Seattle Mariners, and has played for four teams in the past 15 months, cheap quality jerseys being part of the Phillies rotation last year as they reached the World Series. He's been described as "baseball's most likeable mercenary". The simmering war in the Liverpool boardroom between the American owners, Tom Hicks and George Gillett, and the three other directors, broke dramatically into the open last night after Hicks and Gillett turned down two bids, described as "credible", to buy the club and attempted to remove two directors from the board. cheap queensland jerseys One of the bids is understood to have come from John W Henry, the multi-millionaire owner of the Boston Red Sox Major League Baseball team, and the other from business interests in Asia. An official statement from Liverpool, surely unprecedented in the history of a club which has always prided itself on keeping internal disagreements private, said the board was preparing to approve the sale yesterday. However, Hicks and Gillett sought to block that decision by ousting the managing director, Christian Purslow, and commercial director, Ian Ayre, and appointing instead Hicks's son and a close ally. The three directors opposed to the owners – Purslow, Ayre and the chairman, Martin Broughton – who can outvote Hicks and Gillett, cheap soccer jerseys 3xl clearly approved the release of the statement. It suggested they believed both bids were solid enough to approve because they would "repay all [Liverpool's] long-term debt" and they were preparing to do so.However, Hicks and Gillett, the statement said, not only opposed the offers, apparently because they would not provide them with a satisfactory enough profit for their shares, but tried to replace Purslow and Ayre with Hicks's son, Mack, and Lori Kay McCutcheon, the financial controller at the Texan's company Hicks Holdings. That would have given the Americans a majority on the board. The other three clearly resisted and Purslow and Ayre remained on the board last night, finally at odds publicly with Hicks and Gillett. cheap vintage jerseys The statement said of the balance of power in the boardroom: "The matter is now subject to legal review." The statement left no doubt that Broughton, Purslow and Ayre, the majority, were in favour of accepting one of the offers and selling the club. "The board of directors have received two excellent financial offers to buy the club," it said. "A board meeting was called today to review these bids and approve a sale." The clear implication was that, while both offers committed to clearing the £237m Liverpool owe Royal Bank of Scotland and Wachovia, cheap vip jerseys which is due for repayment in nine days' time, they were not preparing to give Hicks and Gillett much for their shares. One source said the bids would repay Hicks and Gillett the money they have loaned into Liverpool, which stood at £144m at 31 July last year, but not pay them a personal profit for transferring ownership. Gillett and Hicks have been holding out for a significant payment, even though Liverpool are sinking into crisis while they do not appear to be in a position to repay to the banks. cheap soccer jerseys One informed source described Henry as "extremely interested" in buying Liverpool, saying he has the means and expertise required, evidenced by Boston's two championships under his ownership and the iconic Fenway Park stadium. Liverpool supporters will, however, be naturally suspicious of any US bid after the bitter experience with Hicks's and Gillett's "leveraged buy-out". nfl jerseys cheap A source close to the discussions said Broughton, Purslow and Ayre would not approve any bid which brought more debt to the club. In a clear act of defiance by those three non-owner directors, the board statement concluded: "Martin Broughton, Christian Purslow and Ian Ayre continue to explore every possible route to achieving a sale of the Club at the earliest opportunity." Hicks and Gillett responded with a statement late last night confirming their "commitment to finding a buyer" but saying they will not accept bids which in their view "dramatically undervalue" the club which they said had nearly doubled its revenues since they took over.

[dusskml-blog]

San Francisco Giants  cheap knicks jerseys

As the post-season has progressed, and the Giants' gritty collective of homegrown youngsters and veteran rejects have scratched out improbable victory after improbable victory, cheap kobe jerseys there has been a growing sense around San Francisco that greater forces are at work here; that it is somehow pre-ordained the Giants will win the World Series for the first time since moving west from New York more than 50 years ago. One local radio host, Paul McCaffrey of KNBR, has been invoking the power of the "particles" and, this being the cradle of hippy civilisation, he has not been laughed out of town. The opposite, in fact. He's been talking about printing T-shirts. But if it is comforting for Giants fans to think they have the "particles" on their side, how much better must it now feel to have the numbers working for them too: 62% of Game One winners have gone on to win the World Series, including six of the past seven. So the Giants it is, then. It's over. Except it isn't. It never is in baseball, cheap laker jerseys a sport in which the numbers are never wrong until they are. Last night's run-fest was ample proof of that, as has been the progress of the Giants and the Rangers, two teams that are where they are because of their infinite appetite for defying the numbers, the experts and anyone else who dares to doubt their capabilities. There are six games still to play, beginning with tonight's Game Two in which the Giants will send another of their young pitching stars, Matt Cain, to the mound, and the Rangers will place their faith in the left-hander CJ Wilson. cheap lightning jerseys The edge must go to Cain, who last week pitched an eight-inning masterpiece in Game Three of the National League Championship Series as the Giants defeated the Philadelphia Phillies 3-0. Then again, the unbeatable Lee was supposed to have the edge last night and look what happened to him. Texas' manager, Ron Washington, cheap lions jerseys will be hoping that Cain will go the way of Lee, that he will not be able to pitch as well as he did against the Phillies. He will be hoping, too, that his best player, Josh Hamilton, who did not manage a hit last night, starts making decent contact with ball and the talismanic Vladimir Guerrero, responsible for two of the Rangers' four errors, does not have another nightmare in right field. San Francisco's manager, cheap lsu jerseys Bruce Bochy, will be hoping for more of what his team have given him throughout the post-season; clutch hitting, sound fielding and starting pitching good enough to give his fearsome bull-pen, led by the closer Brian Wilson, a chance to bring home the victory. If that happens, it may be a case of Texas beware. To lose the first game of the World Series is a setback that can be overcome. To lose the first two games is far more serious than that.

[dusskml-blog]

Rangers seek first World cheap jerseys usa reviews

Bizarrely, the Rangers' managers failed to warm up another pitcher until far too late, as Holland loaded the bases and walked home a run in 13 pitches. cheap jerseys walmart At last Holland was yanked and Mark Lowe took the mound, only to walk Juan Uribe for another run and give up a hit to Edgar Renteria for two more. Lowe then departed and Michael Kirkman came in, hanging a pitch over the plate that Aaron Rowand smacked for a triple, bringing in two more runs. Then Andres Torres batted Rowand in with a double.At this point Nolan Ryan could have brought himself on for all the difference it would have made. cheap jerseys website As it was the Rangers in desperation had Tommy Hunter, down to be the game four starter, throwing in the bullpen when Kirkman finally got the third out of the inning – 30 minutes, 28 balls, four walks, four hits and seven runs after the second out. Yet for the first six innings this game was more like we'd all been expectng in game one: a tight pitchers' duel. But the Rangers should have guessed the gods were against them, in the fourth innings after Ian Kinsler's towering fly off Matt Cain landed on the narrow edge of the outfield wall and somehow bounced back into the field of play. cheap jerseys wholesale jerseys A sliver of an inch's difference and Kinsler has a home run and a very different ball game.The Rangers now get to go home and try to re-group for Saturday's game three but the last two nights must have been shattering for them. Josh Hamilton has only a single in eight at bats, the bullpen is suspect, and the side has only converted four out of 21 runners in scoring positions. Sides that have won the first two games of a seven game World Series have won the title 80% of the time. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and I'd guess that Lee will pitch game four on Sunday. cheap keeper jerseys And simplistic though it sounds, having left-handed Jonathan Sanchez pitching on Saturday must help a Rangers team stacked with right-handers. But since nothing else has gone to plan so far, why should that? Last night at San Francisco's AT&T Park was bad for baseball's experts and it was shocking for the Texas Rangers, who were beaten 11-7 by the hometown Giants in a Game One of the 2010 World Series that turned out to be everything it wasn't supposed to be. The experts said it would be a low-scoring contest, with the edge going to the team that played the best fundamental baseball. cheap kerry jerseys Eighteen runs were scored – equalling the second-highest Game One total in World Series history – and six errors recorded, four of them by a Rangers team that kicked the ball around so often they might have been at Ibrox.They said the Rangers' pitcher Cliff Lee, unbeaten in post-season baseball, would dominate the Giants' line-up. He was chased back into the visitors' dug-out after four and two-thirds innings, and was eventually charged with six earned runs.They said the Giants had a moderate-hitting line-up. To put it in terms a non-baseball fan would understand; 14 hits and 11 runs in a World Series opener is about as moderate as Manchester City's weekly wage bill. They said the Giants pitcher Tim Lincecum, twice a winner of the Cy Young award, given annually to the best pitchers in the American and National Leagues, cheap khl jerseys would run Lee close. He did, although only in the sense that he was marginally less disappointing. Lincecum took the win but he was back in the dug-out before the sixth inning was over, leaving a two-out, two-men-on-base mess that the relief pitcher Santiago Casilla managed to clean up. At least the experts got something right. They said if Tony Bennett was seen in the vicinity of last night's venue he was guaranteed to sing I Left My Heart in San Francisco. He was, and he did, and it was magnificent.

[dusskml-blog]

A slender win keeps cheap jerseys sale

Texas became the latest Series newcomer to make a quick exit. Houston (2005) and Colorado (2007) got swept in their first appearances, Tampa Bay (2008) lasted for only five games. cheap jerseys singapore The American League champion Rangers became the first team since 1966 to get shut out twice in a World Series, with big hitters Josh Hamilton, Vladimir Guerrero and Cruz left taking half-swings or flailing wildly. The Giants earned their sixth title overall, joining the likes of Christy Mathewson, Mel Ott and John McGraw as champs, and equaling them for third with the Red Sox by the Yankees (27) and Cardinals (10). cheap jerseys size 60 They helped ease the gloating that blew from across the Bay, where the Oakland Athletics won three straight crowns in the mid-1970s and swept the Giants in the earthquake-interrupted 1989 Series. San Francisco had come close before. Future Hall of Famers Willie McCovey, Orlando Cepeda, Mays and Marichal lost to the Yankees 1-0 in Game 7 in 1962. In 2002, Bonds & Co. cheap jerseys soccer led the Anaheim Angels 5-0 in the seventh inning of Game 6 before letting that edge and Game 7 slip away.As the final out of the 3-1 win was recorded, the thousands watching on a big-screen TV at San Francisco's Civic Center plaza leapt for joy as City Hall glowed bright orange in the background. "I have a permanent smile on my face," said Valerie Nicklas of Berkeley, who celebrated at another large street gathering near the Giants' AT&T Park. "This makes all the years of suffering worth it." cheap jerseys stitched With Texas playing the third game of the World Series back in their home ballpark, the difference between the two teams came when the Rangers number nine hitter Mitch Moreland – batting where the pitcher would have been hitting in a National League park – smacked Jonathan Sanchez for a two-out, three-run homer in the second inning that was enough to win the game. There was very little to separate the two teams on Saturday night: both scored all their runs from a brace of homers, both stranded five on base. cheap jerseys sydney Colby Lewis pitched a solid number for the Rangers – just as he did in beating the Yankees twice in the ALCS – while Sanchez only staggered into the fifth innings. That must be worrying the Giants.Still, the Rangers should be counting their lucky stars because some dumb managing and bullpen weakness almost caused them to blow it in the eighth innings. Lewis – who in 2009 was playing for the Hiroshima Carp, which shows how far he's come – pitched into the eighth but may have been tiring. With one out Andres Torres hit him for a solo home run, cheap jerseys thailand and then Freddy Sanchez was robbed by Nelson Cruz after hitting a line drive that appeared to be zipping over Cruz's shoulder until he just snagged it running backwards. Lewis then hit Aubrey Huff with a pitch. The sensible thing for Ron Washington to have done here would have been to bring in Neftali Feliz, his ace closer, to get the out. In fact even smarter would have been to bring on leftie Darren Oliver to face Huff, a left-hander, cheap jerseys to buy and then Feliz. But instead he turned again to Darren O'Day. And when O'Day – looking suspiciously nervous after game two's disaster – ran up a full count to Buster Posey, it seemed like a repeat was on the cards until Posey chased a wide-ish one and tapped it weakly. The win gives the Rangers the chance of a comeback and a headache for the Giants over Sanchez's form. After a fine performance against the Braves, the rest of Sanchez's post-season has fallen apart: he's now pitched just 12 innings in three games for eight earned runs. cheap jerseys to china On this form you wouldn't want him to be your starter in a game seven title-winning showdown. But what's the alternative? Bringing back Barry Zito? Actually, that's not a crazy idea although it would require a roster change. Otherwse, it does mean Cliff Lee won't have to play in game four so we'll get another Lee versus Tim Lincecum pitching masterclass. Before then, tonight the Giants send out a kid, Madison Bumgarner, against another kid for Texas, cheap jerseys to make Tommy Hunter. Hunter has looked very patchy in the post-season. But since Bumgarner is a left-hander that might help the Rangers's stack of right-handed hitters. Two fun facts to end this game. One is that Texas catcher Benjie Molina will get a World Series ring no matter which team wins the title, because the 60-plus games he played for San Francisco before being traded is enough to qualify him for one. cheap jerseys to usa The other is that Neftali Feliz became the youngest pitcher to save a World Series game – the youngest since Nolan Ryan in fact, back in 1969. It was pitching that won the second game of the World Series for the San Francisco Giants – but not their own. Instead it was an hilariously inept performance by the Texas Rangers bullpen in the eighth inning, almost unbelievably bad at this level, cheap jerseys toronto that cost the Rangers the game and, more importantly, their dignity. The Rangers' psyche may have been fragile enough after Cliff Lee – hailed almost as the lovechild of Sandy Koufax and Bob Gibson (an interesting mix given that Koufax was a leftie and Gibson pitched right-handed) by the US media – was beaten up in game one. cheap jerseys uk But game two's eighth inning was a nightmare that the Rangers may never recover from. Leading 2-0, the Giants had two out and no-one on when Buster Posey reached out to poke a flare over second base for a single. Ron Washington promptly brought on Derek Holland – so deadly against the Yankees in the ALCS – only to see him throw 11 balls in a row.

[dusskml-blog]

Francisco Giants win cheap jerseys make your own

Edgar Renteria hit a tiebreaking home run in the seventh inning as the San Francisco Giants won the World Series last night, beating the Texas Rangers 3-1 in a tense Game Five. cheap jerseys malaysia Tim Lincecum allowed only three hits over eight innings to help the Giants take the trophy home to San Francisco for the first time. It was an overdue victory. Willie Mays led the Giants to their previous crown in 1954, three years before they moved west. After that, they never quite got it done despite great players such as Barry Bonds, Juan Marichal and Willie McCovey."This buried a lot of bones – '62, '89, 2002," the Giants general manager, Brian Sabean, said, cheap jerseys online usa referring to losing World Series appearances. "This group deserved it, faithful from the beginning. We're proud and humbled by the achievement." Lincecum outduelled Cliff Lee in an every-pitch-matters match-up that was scoreless until Renteria hit a stunning three-run homer with two outs in the seventh inning. Nelson Cruz homered for the Rangers in the bottom half, but Lincecum preserved the lead.Lincecum beat Lee for the second time in a week. The two-times National League Cy Young pitching award winner struck out 10 batters. "Pretty collected. I was very poised out there. cheap jerseys paypal payment From the first inning on my adrenaline kind of just dissipated and I was able to calm down," he said. Wilson closed for a save, completing a surprising romp through the post-season for a pitching-rich team that waited until the final day to clinch a play-off spot. Wilson struck out Cruz swinging to end it, turned toward center field and crossed his wrists in front of his chest as he does after all his saves. "All the experts out there picked us last," Aubrey Huff said.The manager Bruce Bochy enjoys calling his Giants a ragtag bunch. Maybe Renteria, cheap jerseys philippines Cody Ross, Huff and Freddy Sanchez fit that description. Cut loose by other clubs this season and before, they all wound up in San Francisco. "For us to win for our fans, it's never been done there, and with all those great teams," Bochy said. Bonds has spent 15 years with the Giants. "There is no city that deserves this championship more," Bonds said. "I grew up watching my dad and godfather as Giants, lived out my dream playing in the same uniform in front of the best fans in the world and I just witnessed the Giants winning the World Series. I am ecstatic for the team, the city and all the fans you truly deserve it." Renteria reprised his role of post-season star. cheap jerseys r us His 11th-inning single ended Game Seven of the 1997 World Series and lifted Florida over Cleveland. "It was a tough year for me," the often-injured shortstop said. "I told myself to keep working hard and keep in shape because something is going to be good this year."Ross, the surprising most valuable player of the NL championship series, stayed square and hit a lead-off single, and Juan Uribe followed with another hit up the middle. That put a runner at second base for the first time in the game and brought up Huff, who led the Giants in home runs this year and who expertly put down the first sacrifice bunt of his career. Lee struck out Pat Burrell to keep the runners put but Ross began hopping home as soon as Renteria connected, sending a drive that kept sailing and landed over the left-center field wall. "It was a classic pitchers' duel down to that home run. Nobody in this room is more disappointed than I am," Lee said.In the Year of the Pitcher, the World Series proved the oldest adage in the game: Good pitching stops good hitting, every time. cheap jerseys real Lincecum and the team with the best ERA in the big leagues completely shut down Josh Hamilton and the club with the majors leagues' top batting average. "This doesn't make sense. You don't realise it. It's something that's surreal. But that's what we are, World Series champs," the Giants pitcher Matt Cain said. Advertisement Back on regular rest, Lee and Lincecum were sharper than ever. Lee was in command from the start, mixing his fastball, curve, cutter and change-up at will. Lincecum looked even more wicked, cheap jerseys review causing Hamilton to take such an awkward swing that his bat whirly-birded 20 rows into the stands. "We just got cold at the wrong time with the bats," he said. Neither team got a runner past first base through the six innings. Lee got Andres Torres to swing way over a breaking ball for strike three to begin the game, then made Sanchez take a wild hack before shattering his bat. The left-hander retired Ross on a pop-up to end the inning and exchanged fist bumps with the manager Ron Washington. Ross took another crazy swing in the Giants' fourth. And when Uribe later lofted a two-out fly ball, cheap jerseys rugby Lee did not watch it being caught. He was already trotting toward the dugout. Lee was in trouble for only an instant before the seventh. Sanchez hit a two-out single in the sixth, his sinking liner glancing off the glove of a diving Cruz in right field. Buster Posey followed with a deep drive that Cruz caught a step before bumping into the padded wall, prompting the rookie Giants catcher to pop his batting helmet with both hands.

[dusskml-blog]

Manny Ramirez retires cheap jerseys from usa

Goalkeeper Manuel Neuer received a hostile welcome from five Bayern Munich fan groups, who were incensed at their side signing a player who was not only playing for, but is also a self-confessed fan of, cheap jerseys hockey arch-rivals Schalke 04, reports Bild. Last week Neuer met the groups involved in an attempt to find a way forward. The details of what was discussed have not been made clear, cheap jerseys hong kong but Bayern’s chief executive Karl-Heinz Rummenigge was unimpressed, saying he has run out of patience with the fans. President Uli Hoeness, meanwhile, looked to play down the situation: “I think it does not make much sense to shout one’s mouth off. I think most fans have grasped what is at stake.”The fans later released a statement, which may point to a calmer future. “If Manuel Neuer observes the rules of conduct and maintains a respectful distance [from us], there will be no more organised demonstrations against him.” The Tampa Bay Rays slugger Manny Ramirez told Major League Baseball that he is retiring after being notified of an issue that arose under MLB's drug policy. The commissioner's office announced Ramirez's decision in a statement, cheap jerseys in canada but did not say whether he tested positive for a banned substance. Ramirez previously served a 50-game suspension for violating the drug policy while he was with the Los Angeles Dodgers. "Major League Baseball recently notified Manny Ramirez of an issue under Major League Baseball's joint drug prevention and treatment programme," the statement said. "Rather than continue with the process under the programme, Ramirez has informed MLB that he is retiring as an active player. cheap jerseys in china If Ramirez seeks reinstatement in the future, the process under the drug programme will be completed." MLB said it would have no further comment. "The Tampa Bay Rays were informed today by the commissioner's office that Manny Ramirez has decided to retire after being informed of an issue under the drug programme," cheap jerseys in store the Rays added in a statement. "We are obviously surprised and disappointed by this news. We will have no further comment on this matter, and our fans and organisation will carry on." The 38-year-old outfielder-designated hitter left the team earlier this week to attend to what the Rays called a family matter. The manager, Joe Maddon, said on Thursday that he expected Ramirez to be available for Friday night's game at the Chicago White Sox. The 12-time All-Star agreed to a $2m, one-year contract with the defending AL East champions in the offseason, cheap jerseys in usa hoping to re-establish himself as one of the game's feared hitters. Ramirez hit .298 with nine homers and 42 RBIs in 90 games for the Dodgers and White Sox last season. He's a career .312 hitter with 555 home runs in 18-plus seasons, including some of his best seasons with the Cleveland Indians and Boston Red Sox.There have been a hundred stories told about Feller over the past 24 hours, the most often repeated being the one about his 1940 duel against a motorcycle – a clumsily conceived stunt in which his fast ball was "measured" against a speeding Harley Davidson. He was credited with throwing at 104mph. Did he? Feller always boasted he threw harder than that. He wasn't short of confidence, Rapid Robert (as he was nicknamed), and why should he have been given the career he had after coming into the big leagues in 1936, cheap jerseys india aged 17? On his debut he struck out 15 against the St Louis Browns. Later that season he had 17 strike-outs in one game – an American League record at the time. At the end of that season he returned home to Iowa and went back to high school.Jayson Stark, the baseball analyst for ESPN, wrote this great appreciation of Feller in his 2007 book, The Most Overrated and Underrated Players in Baseball History. Feller was named the sixth "most underrated" – though not in Cleveland, where they built a statue in his honour. Yet for all Feller's achievements on the baseball field, he will perhaps be best remembered for his decision, at the age of 23, cheap jerseys made in usa to walk away from the game in the aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbour – a decision he recalled in a piece for the New York Times.Feller was at war for four years, a chief petty officer on a naval warship. He left his post in August 1945, and pitched for the Indians two days after coming home. He won, of course. Who knows how many wins Feller would have compiled had he exercised his right to stay at home? At the very least he would have joined the exclusive club of pitchers who won more than 300 games. He himself floated the idea he might have got to 400 wins. We'll never know and, according to Feller, we shouldn't care.

[dusskml-blog]

the best baseball movie cheap jerseys direct legit

Moneyball is a Brad Pitt movie based on Michael Lewis's book Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, about the Oakland Athletics team and how its general manager Billy Beane used sabermetrics to change the team's fortunes. cheap jerseys direct nba (Or not, but you need to watch the movie or know the story). Moneyball the movie was released in the US this weekend and with an Aaron Sorkin script (West Wing, The Social Network, and Sports Night, possibly the best fictional TV show about sport, but that's another debate) has mostly received rave reviews. The promotional material describes it as "one of the greatest baseball movies ever made", but is it one of the best five? The former Major League Baseball star Jose Canseco has been indulging in a very public meltdown on Twitter, reports NBC, cheap jerseys edmonton breaking up with long-term girlfriend Leila Shennib and then using the medium to try and find someone new, all in short, often badly spelt sentences ...The pair had been dating for almost two years when Shennib said she broke up with the player, who famously published a book claiming 85% of major league players took steroids. The break-up occurring after he “did [her] dirty” – a reference to specific events she did not wish to reveal further. Canesco was angry and in now-deleted tweets got it off his chest, beginning with: “Be careful with woman who show off there tits and ass and think that’s a career,” moving on to: “I will never forget or forgive what u said to me leila ur evil,” before posting her telephone number, prompting a considerable number of hate messages from fans.Inevitably there was also philosophy: “love makes fools out of all us especially me”; cheap jerseys elite coupon code desperation: “Leila will you marry me please” and finally pity: “I made a total fool of myself for someone who never even cared about me. what an idiot I am.” But like any love-sick teenager he soon bounced back and as a pro-athlete he managed it without a protracted period locked in his bedroom weeping to a soundtrack of the Smiths and Joy Division either: “Would love to meet a nice holesome midwest girl here in chicago. We play tomorrow night at 7 pm in zion if anyone is out there for me.”Sadly, there appear to have been few responses as soon after @ashleyarizona, a female twitterer, announced to her followers that she had been messaged by Canseco: “lmao [laughing my ass off] jose canseco hit on me via DM.” Fortunately she took a screen-grab as an example Canseco himself may wish to consult on just where he is going wrong with the ladies. cheap jerseys embroidered “Ur hot baby” it read. The celebrations in Dallas after the Mavericks clinched the NBA Championship seem destined never to be forgotten, literally in one case as a fan’s find idle promises came back to haunt him. In the case of Derek Dilday, in tattooist’s ink. On his arse.“Once they got to the finals, cheap jerseys for sale especially against the Miami Heat, I may have got a little too excited and posted on Facebook that I would get Dirk Nowitzki’s face tatted on my ass if they won it all,” he told the Dallas Observer.“When Dirk lifted the Larry O’Brien and the MVP trophy it was the greatest sports moment of my life. I sports-cried, called a high school friend that does tattoos and have been on a Dallas Mavericks championship high ever since,” he continued. The Observer headed the piece with the descriptive and amusing headline: “Why I Got This Tattoo of Dirk Nowitzki On My Ass (As If It’s Not Obvious)“ accompanied it with a picture of Nowitzki’s face disarmingly looming out of a right buttock and closed, gloriously with Dilday’s own cheerful sign-off: “Now I realise that I will be sitting on a big German man’s face for the rest of my life.” A fairytale start for Thomas Bjorn at the Open created the potential for an extraordinary comeback story. cheap jerseys free shipping One, it seems, that the media believed was not going to last. How else to explain headline writers across the world all using their bankers after only one day’s play?“Bjorn Again!” trumpeted big bold letters in papers from Belfast to Sydney and Glasgow to Los Angeles and Auckland, as sports editors made the best of an opportunity that comes only with a Thomas or a Borg. With the latter now 55 years old, they dutifully flung the big typeface at Thomas with gleeful abandon. With two exceptions. Congratulations to the Vancouver Sun for going with “Bjorn Supremacy”. And, intriguingly, to the Danish press where, consumed by the Tour de France, cheap jerseys from china nba Bjorn was barely to be seen at all. Instead, Ekstra Bladet went for drama and theatre, perhaps in a bid to pull in cycling fans put off by golf’s staid image, announcing: “Bjorn takes revenge on cursed hole.”The USA beat Brazil on penalties in a nail-biting quarter-final this week on their way to tomorrow’s Women’s World Cup final, but far from turning on their defeated side, some of the Brazilian press took an upbeat angle after the game. Under the headline “The Beauty who once again stopped Brazil” O Globo waxed lyrical about US goalkeeper Hope Solo. She was the “beautiful green-eyed goalie who has charmed journalists,” said the paper alongside a fulsome profile.Journo do Brasil joined in, cheap jerseys from china review explaining that although Solo was “one of the reasons for the Brazilian’s departure from the Women’s World Cup,” she also “charmed everyone on Twitter, not so much for her talent in goal, but mainly for her beauty. Even the Brazilians could not get angry with the goalie.” Indeed, the hashtag #goleiraeualinda, or “beautiful American goalie” was the No1 topic on Twitter in Brazil at the time and, although Journo did note that Daiane Menezes Rodrigues, who scored an own goal and missed a penalty, may be the villain of the piece, the fans had already adopted a new hero. “Hi Solo, my name is Bruno, live in Brazil. Marry me? Goalkeeper beautiful! Go United States!” enthused one new convert.

[dusskml-blog]

how they compare cheap jerseys authentic review

Less than a month ago, the baseball question being asked was whether the Boston Red Sox would qualify for the playoffs as AL East champions or as the wildcard. But over the course of a disastrous September, the Red Sox won just seven and lost 20 games. By the last night of the season they had surrendered a nine-game lead and were tied with the Tampa Bay Rays for the wildcard spot. cheap jerseys basketball But three hours into the final game of the regular season the Red Sox were winning and the Rays were losing 0-7 to – of all teams – the New York Yankees. And then Boston's season imploded one more time, the Rays launched a stunning comeback and the Red Sox collapsed at the bottom of the ninth. Within two minutes of final-play drama the Baltimore Orioles scored, Evan Longoria homered and the Red Sox were eliminated. To make the drama even more compelling, the Atlanta Braves went through a similar humiliation at exactly the same time, surrendering a similar league lead to the St Louis Cardinals, and then falling in extra innings to the Phillies. cheap jerseys buy 10 free shipping In honour of the nine Boston Red Sox (and Rays, Braves and Cardinals) who were there when it happened, here are nine incredible and unexpected sporting turnarounds. There are many, many more, so please debate them below: Let's make Red Sox fans feel a little better today: it is only just seven years since perhaps the greatest turnaround in American sporting history. The Red Sox were weighed down by 86 years of The Curse of the Bambino and facing their bitterest rivals in the ALCS. The New York Yankees won the first three, cheap jerseys canada but the Red Sox came back to win their next eight games – beating the Yankees 4-3 and then sweeping the St Louis Cardinals 4-0 in the World Series. Biggest comeback in MLB postseason history and Boston's first world championship since 1918. The England cricket captain Ian Botham lost his job at Lord's, the home of cricket, in humiliating fashion, scoring a pair and being told that it was a good job he had resigned because he was about to be sacked. In the following Test match, at Leeds, England were forced to follow-on. cheap jerseys china reviews England were still 90 runs behind with just three wickets left, when Botham let loose. He scored 149, Australia were forced to bat again, and, needing just 130 to win, were bowled out for 111. Botham performed similar heroics in the following test matches, England won the series 3-1 and it forever became known as Botham's Ashes. An unknown Frenchman was upsetting the odds and leading the Open golf championship, arriving at the last hole with such a lead that he only need a double-bogey six to become the first Frenchman since 1907 to win the title. He hit seven. Not just that, but it was the manner of the triple bogey, hitting a grandstand, landing in a stream and wading through the water in his bare feet, cheap jerseys china wholesale that will long linger in golfing memory. He still qualified for a playoff, but he was never going to win after such cavalier failure. In the group stages of the 1999 Cricket World Cup, Australia were on the verge of being eliminated from the tournament, when Aussie captain Steve Waugh hit the ball towards Herschelle Gibbs, cheap jerseys coupon code who prematurely celebrated and let the ball slip through his hands. Waugh may or may not have then said: "You've just dropped the World Cup, mate", but he did go on to score a century and Australia won. A few days later the teams met again in the semi-final. South Africa were cruising to victory when Australia's Shane Warne dramatically intervened and South Africa stumbled. Even so, the game reached the final over. South Africa still needed nine to win with just one wicket left. Lance Klusener scored eight off two balls and South Africa needed only one run to win from the final four balls. And then this happened: Liverpool had been arguably the finest European football team during the late 1970s and early 1980s, winning the European Cup in 1977, 1978, 1981 and 1984. cheap jerseys design And then came one of the most traumatic nights in soccer history, Heysel, when Liverpool were again competing for the title. English teams were thrown out of Europe and by the time they were allowed back, the Liverpool era was over. And then, unexpectedly in 2005, Liverpool reached the final again. But at half-time they were 0-3 down to Milan. And then Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard turned superhero, Liverpool scored three times and they went on to win on penalties.

[dusskml-blog]

Red Sox and Liverpool cheap goalkeeper jerseys

One of the great things about the baseball season being so long is that 162 games is a large enough sample size to get a clear sense of who the really good teams are. Likewise, cheap hockey jerseys canada with so many games on the schedule, it is rare that one is able to point to any single game upon which a team's entire season hinged. Entering play on the final night of the regular season, four teams stood tied for two wild card playoff spots.In the National League, the St Louis Cardinals and the Atlanta Braves were even at 89 wins on the season, and in the American League, the Boston Red Sox and the Tampa Bay Rays were knotted at 90 wins. What followed was one of the single most thrilling nights of baseball in the history of the game. But just getting to this point required two hugely unlikely collapses to happen in the same season. Consider: on 1 September, the Atlanta Braves sat 80-55 – 8.5 games ahead of the St Louis Cardinals for the lead in the NL wild card race. According to coolstandings.com, cheap hockey jerseys for sale at the beginning of the month, the Braves' probability of securing a playoff spot stood at 97.7%. They proceeded to go 9-17 and be outscored by 27 runs in September to find their comfortable wild card lead whittled away to nothing. The Red Sox's collapse was even worse, if that can be believed. On 1 September, they owned an American League-best 83-52 record. Not only were they nine games ahead of the next closest team in the wild card race, but they held a 1.5 game lead in the AL East. cheap hockey jerseys for team With a 99.4% chance of making the playoffs, they were a virtual shoo-in. But in September, they posted a miserable 7-19 record –winning zero games in which they scored fewer than seven runs – and the Rays drew even. Still, with one game remaining, each team controlled their own playoff destiny. A win last night would have guaranteed them at least a one game playoff, assuming the Cardinals and Rays were to win also. cheap hockey jerseys toronto The only game with playoff implications last night that wasn't a particularly tense contest was that between the St Louis and the Houston Astros. The Cardinals jumped out to a five run lead after the top of the first inning and rode a complete game shutout from their ace, Chris Carpenter, for an easy 8-0 victory. Against the NL East-leading Philadelphia Phillies – who own baseball's best record at 102-60 – the Braves quickly fell behind 1-0 in the top of the first, but evened the score in their own half of the inning. In the third inning, the Braves took a 3-1 lead on a home run by second baseman Dan Uggla. Entering the ninth inning, it appeared that their three runs would be enough and they would meet the Cardinals for a one game playoff as they sent hard-throwing rookie closer Craig Kimbrel to the mound. But Kimbrel was unable to hold the lead, and the game went into extra innings, where the Braves' offense was unable to muster anything against the Phillies' bullpen. Finally, in the top of the thirteenth, cheap islander jerseys the Phillies broke through first on a softly hit RBI single off the bat of right fielder Hunter Pence. The Phillies held onto the lead in the bottom of the thirteenth, and just like that, the Braves' improbable collapse was complete. In the American league, the Red Sox faced the Baltimore Orioles and the Rays took on the AL East-leading Yankees. On paper, these matchups certainly favored the Red Sox. Indeed, prior to last night's games, coolstandings listed the Red Sox playoff odds at 59.1%. Early in these two contests, it looked as if things would play out according to the statistical models. After the fifth inning, the Rays found themselves in a daunting 7-0 hole and, cheap jerseys amazon according to Fangraphs.com, had a 1.8% chance of winning the game. The Red Sox, meanwhile, clung to a slim 3-2 lead after five. Things soon took a strange turn, however.With the Red Sox game in a rain delay, the Rays rallied for six runs in the eighth inning, capped off by a three run home run by superstar third baseman Evan Longoria to cut the Yankees' lead to just one. In the bottom of the ninth with no one on base and two outs, Dan Johnson – one of the worst hitters in the league this year – incredibly hit a line drive home run off of the right field foul pole to tie the game. In Baltimore, play resumed after a one-hour, 26-minute delay. Entering the bottom of the ninth inning, cheap jerseys and shoes the score held at 3-2 and the Red Sox went with their reliable closer, Jonathan Papelbon. Papelbon struck out the first two batters he faced to raise the Red Sox win probability in the game to 95.3%. But two doubles later and a single to shallow left field later and the Red Sox had shockingly lost. In fact, it was the first game they lost this season when leading after eight innings. A thousand miles away in Tampa, Rays-Yankees rolled on into its twelfth inning. As news of the result of the Red Sox game began to trickle in, the stadium erupted and the Rays celebrated in the dugout knowing they would live to see at least one more day. Just moments after the game in Baltimore had gone final, cheap jerseys australia though, Evan Longoria struck a deep line drive to left field that just barely cleared the wall to end the game. Fangraphs keeps a stat called win percentage added (or WPA) that tracks how much an individual player contributes to his team's chances of winning a game. Evan Longoria's WPA in last night's game was .504. For his game-tying home run in the ninth, Dan Johnson contributed a WPA of .490 – in other words: on one play, he improved his team's chances of winning by 49% In many ways, the comeback was an apt microcosm for the Rays' season: all but dead, a late push, drew even at the last possible moment, and snuck away with the win. In all, it was one of the most dramatic nights of baseball I have ever experienced, and the sheer unlikelihood of the confluence of events that were required to make it possible is staggering. While it is true that fans can take a certain amount of comfort in the fact that the length of the baseball season ensures that the outcome of any one game is unlikely to determine a team's fate, as we saw last night it is nevertheless a thrill when we do get to see 161 games of work come down to that final one.

[dusskml-blog]

Detroit Tigers - as it happened cheap vikings jerseys

Established in New York in 1883, and long known as the Brooklyn Dodgers, the team breeds drama. It fielded Jackie Robinson, the first black player in Major League Baseball, and in 1957 moved to California, cheap vintage jerseys nba becoming, for better or worse, associated with Hollywood and a reputation for showmanship. Rupert Murdoch bought the team and stadium in 1998 as a way to boost audiences for Fox Entertainment Group, and sold it in 2003 for $430m to Frank McCourt, a Boston-based property developer.It was a wretched reign. McCourt spun a revolving door of personnel, sold assets and hiked prices, leaving stadiums half-empty. His divorce from his wife Jamie, cheap volleyball jerseys the team's CEO, exposed the couple's extravagant lifestyle – including daily haircuts – at Dodger expense. The Dodgers staggered into bankruptcy in 2011. The brutal beating of a San Francisco Giants fan in the Dodger stadium parking lot capped a terrible year. In 2012, amid the ashes, came a stunning announcement: a consortium known as the Guggenheim group bought the franchise for $2.15bn. Murdoch, having sold too soon, could only weep. It seemed an insane sum until the group signed a $7bn television rights deal with Time Warner.The season started with febrile expectations. “When you spend that amount of money, fans think you'll go all the way,” said Suchon. “Part of the Dodger brand is not just how often they win but their proximity to Hollywood. cheap wnba jerseys In LA it's all about star power, and Johnson really added to that.” But sub-par performances and injuries tumbled the Dodgers to the bottom of the league, sowing doubt about manager Don Mattingly and the money men behind him. The team's mid-season recovery and winning the division by 11 games restored faith and packed the stadium. And spared vanities.“The beauty of baseball is it's a 162-game marathon, and with this team, the playing talent caught up with the expenditure,” said Johnson, cheap yankees jerseys the author. “Mysterious people from hedge funds with more money than God were directing the team, and they got the job done.” Puig, a mercurial Cuban right-fielder, has taken a lot of the credit with thunderous batting and threatrical celebrations. Shortstop Ramirez, pitcher Clayton Kershaw and, latterly, first baseman Adrian Gonzalez have also earned acclaim.The Dodgers' season came to grief on Friday in game six of the NLCS, beaten 9-0 by the Cardinals. St Louis punched their ticket to the World Series with a 4-2 series win, cheap youth jerseys nba while LA were left to rue a disappointing display by ace pitcher Kershaw and a pair of errors in the field by Puig. But few doubt the LA powerhouse will endure. The money, the pool of young players and Mattingly were a formidable combination, said Johnson. “Even if they didn't win this year you know the Dodgers will be around for years to come. When the Dodgers are successful it's good for baseball and good for American sports. discount jerseys usa But as a Giants fan I do worry about the challenge my team faces.” On Wednesday, the Boston Red Sox and the St Louis Cardinals will meet again in the World Series, the title of best team in baseball on the line. It will be the first time these two long-running franchises have met in the World Series since 2004, when the wild-card Red Sox swept the 100-game winning Cardinals for their first world championship since 1918. Plenty has changed in the world of Major League Baseball over the last nine years – for instance back in 2004 plenty of casual fans were actually rooting for a Boston team to win, discount vikings jerseys a scenario that seems absolutely like science-fiction these days. Still, in a way, the fortunes of the Red Sox have gone full circle as this 2013 team's road to the sport's biggest stage might be as unlikely as that taken by the 2004 Red Sox. Looking back at the 2004 team now, without the burden of 86 years of futility, the success of that particular Red Sox team doesn't seem so surprising in a big picture sort of scale. After all, jerseys 4 cheap they had a stating pitcher rotation that featured Pedro Martinez, only a few years removed from the most dominant stretches any starting pitcher has had in baseball history, and a newly signed Curt Schilling, who was second only to an unworldly Johann Santana in that year's Cy Young voting. The Sox offense featured Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz at their peaks, a combination that drew legitimate, non-crazy comparisons to Ruth and Gehrig. They had peak-era Johnny Damon hitting lead-off, and 2003's batting title winner Bill Mueller hitting lower in the lineup. Under any other circumstance, the Red Sox would have been a consensus pick as one of the best teams in baseball, despite the fact that they lost out on the services of Alex Rodriguez during the offseason. (This was seen as a cruel blow of fate for the Red Sox, another big time example of how much things can change in a sport in less than a decade.) Of course, this wasn't any other circumstance, this was the season following the 2003 American League Championship Series against the New York Yankees, where the Red Sox lost in heartbreaking fashion when manager Grady Little left Pedro Martinez in game seven several batters too long, allowing the Yankees to tie the game before winning in extra innings with Aaron Boone's solo shot against Tim Wakefield. If the Curse of the Bambino, the idea that the Red Sox were being punished by the baseball gods for letting Babe Ruth head to the Yankees, never really flourished until after Boston's stunning loss to the New York Mets in 1986, it reached its absolute peak as a media creation in the aftermath of the Yankees loss. In the aftermath, the Red Sox fired manager Grady Little and replaced him with Terry Francona, who was best known for an unsuccessful tenure as the manager of the Philadelphia Phillies.

[dusskml-blog]

Boston Red Sox eliminate cheap panthers jerseys

Much has been made of the vaunted Red Sox Nation over the years, and for good reasons. Their fans are rabid, obsessive and passionate followers of Boston's baseball team, adjectives that don't really bring justice to their level of intensity for all things Sox. Of course, cheap patriots jerseys one of the main features of the Nation is that it's borderless, with all sorts of colonies springing up in enemy territories around North America without permission from local authorities. Heck, even people outside MLB's immediate sphere of influence cheer on the Sox, and so, from London to Paris to Nepal and Tweeling, South Africa, those pulling for the Olde Towne Team are getting set to follow the upcoming World Series action vs the St Louis Cardinals by any means necessary - some even via the Guardian's blog. However, the Nation is not alone in this regard. Cards fans can be found spread thick across the vast center of the United States, cheap quality jerseys mostly thanks to St Louis' one time status as the westernmost team in Major League Baseball and the powerful 50,000 watt station KMOX, which broadcast their games and made Cards fans out of many, miles away from the mothership. Since then, the Cardinals healthy diaspora have spread their wings and filtered out to all parts of the country. For instance, if you were at Foley's Bar in Manhattan enjoying a drink while watching the baseball playoffs, you were undoubtedly surrounded by an Alfred Hitchcock like swarming of birds fans, Redbirds that is. Arrive just before first pitch before Game One of the World Series on Wednesday and you'll likely be two hours too late to find a seat, such is the pull of the pub that becomes a small patch of Midwest, right in the heart of midtown. Maybe it's best for them to stay in groups whilst away from St Louis, because Cardinals fans are under unprecedented fire lately. cheap redskins jerseys Why? For being Cardinals fans. What's the perception driving detractors of St Louis' fans? That they're a sickly-sweet group of do-gooding polite Midwesterners that refuse to get upset with their own players even when they suck. That sometimes, they even have the nerve to applaud the opposition! (See this blog on Deadspin and this on Bloomberg). This hatred is exacerbated when the Cards crush you season after season of course, to the tune of 19 pennants and 11 World Series titles. Yes, outsiders are starting to notice such dominating play, and the Yankees, long the premier public enemy for baseball fans, may soon have company. Who takes the brunt of that heat? Those Cardinals fans who live far from the security blanket that is Busch Stadium of course. So we checked in with the those who left the Gateway to the West to get their take on the abuse, and to discover what the true values of real live Redbirds supporters really are. Leyland has been working under one-year contracts the last couple years, saying he was content to wait until after the season to address his status. He was a bit reflective late this season, cheap sacramento kings jerseys mentioning to reporters that he had already managed the Tigers longer than he had expected they would keep him but he also said in September that he still loved the atmosphere, the competition and his team. Leyland was 700-597 with the Tigers. He led them to the World Series immediately after taking over in 2006, losing to St. Louis in five games. The Tigers went to the World Series again in 2012 but were swept by San Francisco.This year's team had a chance to make it back, but Detroit couldn't take advantage of its standout starting pitching against the Red Sox. When Leyland arrived at the Tigers' training camp this year, it marked 50 seasons since he first showed up there as an 18-year-old prospect. His playing career never amounted to much, but his accomplishments as a manager over more than two decades have been impressive.He is 1,769-1,728 overall during stints with the Tigers, Pittsburgh Pirates, Florida Marlins and Colorado Rockies. He won the World Series in 1997 with Florida. He has also been part of some of baseball's most memorable games Pittsburgh's loss in Game 7 of the 1992 NLCS in Atlanta, cheap soccer jerseys 3xl Florida's victory over Cleveland in Game 7 of the 1997 World Series and Detroit's loss to Minnesota in a one-game playoff for the AL Central title in 2009.he beginning and end of the 2013 Major League Baseball season were not how the LA Dodgers had hoped, but in between was the team's best season for many years. LA crashed out to the St Louis Cardinals, two wins short of the World Series, but that was further than many thought they would go when the all-new, billion-dollar, superstar Dodgers skidded at the start of the season, appearing like baseball was going to have its own bonfire of the vanities. A consortium of financiers which included basketball legend Magic Johnson had paid a record $2.15bn for the team, and fuelled giddy talk of Dodger conquest, cheap soccer jerseys good quality Dodger dominance, Dodger supremacy – only to see the team crumple and burn. The batting was mediocre, the pitching woeful, defeats mounted, and by May they trailed last in the National League West. Glitz and promise acquired the pallor of hubris and debacle. “The season started as a disaster. They looked to qualify as the most disappointing team ever. Things were imploding. It was, wow, is this happening?” said Richard Johnson, cheap super bowl 50 jerseys author of The Dodgers: 120 Years of Dodger Baseball.The Dodgers saw off the Atlanta Braves but fell in the National League Championship Series to the Cardinals. Despite falling short, this is the season the Dodgers regained the mantle of baseball royalty.“For years I heard the frustration and the pain of fans every night. Now there is just joy and relief that Los Angeles has a worthy team. It's a baseball town again,” said Josh Suchon, a radio host and author of Miracle Men: Hershiser, Gibson and the Improbable 1988 Dodgers.

[dusskml-blog]

St Louis Cardinals: cheap kerry jerseys

At first base, Boston's Mike Napoli was a force in the ALCS, hitting a pair of solo home runs, including his blast off Detroit's Justin Verlander in Game Three which was just enough to beat the Tigers 1-0. Though against Tampa Bay in the ALDS he was downright awful. It's just the opposite for the rookie Cards first baseman, big Matt Adams, cheap knicks jerseys who had a whale of a series vs Pittsburgh in the ALDS, but was brought to his knees against the Dodgers in the NLCS where you...yes YOU, could have been more productive. With these players, it's just about which version shows up. Craig, a converted outfielder, could also wind up playing first base in St Louis for the Cardinals if his foot holds up. Even on one leg he'll have the edge defensively for the Redbirds during games that Ortiz plays. Matt Carpenter can't touch Dustin at second base and with good reason. Pedroia is a doubles machine. It's not that Carpenter is some sort of slouch. On the contrary, he became an All-Star in 2013. Still, to say the Cards second baseman has been awful in the playoffs is an understatement, cheap laker jerseys having hit all of .053 vs Pittsburgh in the NLDS. Regardless, his 11-pitch at-bat against Clayton Kershaw in Game Six of the NLCS which set the stage for his implosion is now a moment of St Louis lore. Will Middlebrooks has had an up and down existance since joining the Red Sox. That's up to the big club, down to minor league Pawtucket. He's looked great, he's looked awful, he's been hurt. Regardless of his hitting – an even .100 in the ALCS – he's what the Sox have at third right now, and that's not to say he's not a player who could be around Boston for a long time or, a player who could eventually be used as trade bait. He's just not David Freese. Not even a David Freese who is a shadow of the player who wowed the world in the 2011 World Series. cheap lightning jerseys His power numbers plummeted this season, and his playoffs haven't been a whole lot better. However, when you're young and you've done it before, some still believe, hence the advantage here. If Boston give more starting time to Bogaerts, who has found plate discipline in his young age, the edge is slimmer. Yadier Molina is the best of the best backstops and working on a hall-of-fame career. He's also in the MVP chat, but perhaps more impressively, despite catching close to 1200 regular season games over a 10-year career, his numbers have improved for three consecutive years. Yadier allowed three passed balls by him all season long, and is still throwing out runners at high levels. Molina does everything, he even hit .373 with runners in scoring position, which is something these Cardinals do better than well. cheap nba jerseys 4xl His performances include a tinge of the supernatural, despite a rough NLCS. Even God rested on the seventh day. These days, Carlos Beltran isn't just an outfielder - he's a rallying cry. In two short years, Beltran has had such an impact in St Louis, that he's managed to get an entire city behind him as the 36-year-old begins his first World Series games after a long and distinguished career. At the same time that Mets fans have started to wake up to the fact that Beltran was the greatest center fielder in their history, cheap nfl jerseys 365 he garners city-wide admiration for the leadership and class he's shown in St Louis. This brings all sorts of complicated feelings to a head in New York, thanks to his prior history with the Cardinals, but no one really cares about this right now. Facts are facts - he's a beautiful baseball player, who does all sorts of things well and deserves to be in this position. Shane Victorino is a walking (or limping) intangible, as we saw on Saturday night when he hit a grand slam that ousted the Tigers from the playoffs in Game Six of the ALCS, but he can't complete with Beltran here, and he'd tell you that himself. Advertisement John Jay became famous in the NLCS, for his shameful fielding. He was absolutely awful in Game Three in center field - if you watched that performance, you may be shocked to learn that he was even worse with his bat. Meanwhile, Jacoby Ellsbury has had himself a better than average October with the bat, .400/.467/.525 all done while the rest of the baseball world forgot to hit. cheap paintball jerseys He actually scored seven runs against the Rays, which is a lot in four games. This Ellsbury, he's a trouble maker, no doubt, and this series represents his final opportunity for the soon-to-be free agent to sweeten an already sickly sweet pot. There seems to be this thinking that Jonny Gomes is some sort of good luck charm. He's also earned a reputation as a "thinking man's player/managerial type", this despite his footloose and fancy-free attitude. One of these items may be true, and it's probably the latter. Gomes has been on three playoff teams in 11 years which hardly seems lucky. In those playoffs he's never hit higher than .222. A major Beardo ringleader, Gomes is a good guy to have around because he is a good guy to have around. Plus he runs the bases well and hits righties OK, except in the playoffs. That being said, like Victorino, Gomes is another intangibles type, but a platoon player at best, that despite the bears. Matt Holliday is a bona fide starter who started to come around a bit in the Dodgers series when he hit that big home run in Game Four off Ricky Nolasco. Holliday doesn't get anybody racing back from the fridge to watch him hit, which means he fits perfectly in a lineup dominated by no one, but, he remains a big bat capable of doing real damage. You'll take him on your team, believe me.

[dusskml-blog]

Sox vs Cardinals: an old cheap jerseys uk

The Cardinals got on base 33% of the time in the non-designated hitter National League. The team they faced in the National League Championship Series, the Los Angeles Dodgers, cheap jerseys to usa were third in the category. On-base percentage did a better job of predicting success than pitching. Both teams had good pitching, though not as awesome as you might think. The Red Sox were sixth in the American League in walks plus hits per innings pitch at 1.3. Both the teams they beat in the playoffs, the Tigers and Tampa Bay Rays, cheap jerseys toronto gave up fewer walks plus hits per inning. The Cardinals, meanwhile, gave up 1.28 walks plus hits per innings pitched, which was also good enough for sixth best in their league. The two teams they ended up beating in the playoffs, the Dodgers and Pittsburgh Pirates, too had better walks plus hits per innings pitched during the regular season. Second, both teams are proving that there is no such thing as a "closer" per se. One of the great arguments in traditional vs. cheap jerseys usa free shipping sabermetrics is whether or not there are some pitchers who are born to close, while others just aren't meant for it. Traditionalists tend to fall on the former side (think Mariano Rivera), as sabermetricians tend to fall on the latter side. Both the Red Sox and Cardinals had their closers go down early in the season. That turned out not to be a problem for either franchise. The Red Sox' Koji Uehara had never saved more than 13 games in a season before 2013. This year he saved 21 games with an unheard of 0.57 walks plus hits per innings pitched, cheap jerseys walmart and he went on to earn MVP honors in the League Championship Series. The Cardinals went with Edward Mujica for most of the year. He turned in a solid performance with a 1.01 walks plus hits per innings pitched and 37 saves, even though he had never saved more than two games in a season before. Mujica tired late in the season, and the Cardinals turned to youngster Trevor Rosenthal. He only saved three games all regular season, cheap jerseys wholesale but he has now equalled that total in the postseason. His 0.71 walks plus hits per innings pitched is nearly equal to Uehara's 0.56 in the 2013 postseason. Third, it turns out that a good team is a good team. The ability of a manager to be the driving force of a team is overrated, even when you associate historic teams (think the 1950s Yankees) with great managers (think Casey Stengel). A good manager is probably worth no more than five wins. One estimate from Baseball Prospectus is that a good manager is only worth three wins. Both of these teams would have made the playoffs had they lost three additional games. Indeed, cheap jerseys youth neither of these teams are managed by people who have a history of success. Red Sox Manager John Farrell is only in his third team, and he had never won more than 81 games in a season before. Second year Cardinals Manager Mike Matheny took over from all-time great Manager Tony La Russa in 2012 and hasn't missed a beat. A good team is a good team, regardless of who the manager is. The rotations are very close. We'll see what Michael Wacha, a rookie 18-months into his professional career will be able to do against Boston's lineup at Fenway Park. I mean, he did OK against the Dodgers, zero runs in 13.2 innings of work, so confidence must be reasonably high. Adam Wainwright is an ace, and Lance Lynn is also a formidable opponent. Joe Kelly was one of just a few Cardinals to be touched up at all in the NLCS. For Boston, John Lackey, Jon Lester and Clay Buchholz are solid enough, even if the latter got hit a bit against Detroit in the ALCS. Peavy is a major question mark. The good news for Boston is that the American League beat the National League at the All-Star Game back in July. Why? Because the winner of that exhibition game means they get home field advantage in the World Series. I tell you what, cheap keeper jerseys that sure does make a hell of a lot of sense, doesn't it? No. It does not. It's one of the dumbest ideas of all time, and in this case, it could really help the Red Sox. Why? Because an extra home game means an extra game with American League rules, which means an extra game with a designated hitter batting instead of the pitcher batting. This means Boston slugger David Ortiz can play in his traditional role of DH in the majority of the potential seven games. When the series shifts to St Louis for games three, four and five (if necessary), Ortiz will be forced to play first base, which he did back in the 2004 and 2007 World Series, which rather remarkably turned out just fine for the Sox. Manager John Farrell has committed to Big Papi in the field for at least one of those games. The Cards DH will be another important bat, Allen Craig, one of four Cardinals to hit over .300 this season, but a cog that missed the first two Cardinals postseason series with foot issues - this also turned out just fine for the Cardinals. His being available provides a significant boost to the overall scope of the Cards lineup, even if Big Papi holds the advantage at DH for Boston.