Not dead yet...

At least not completely. I still use the sidebar quite frequently myself, and Norm dropped me a line to tell me to add this: http://thetripledeke.blogspot.com/

Check it out if you're a hockey fan.

I'm also adding http://www.ranyontheroyals.com/. It's a great blog about true baseball fan suffering. It also talks about teams that aren't better suited for AAA once in a great while.

.....

Please, please, please. When you have the bases loaded, two outs, full count, and the winning run on third, do not, I repeat, do not walk the guy. Groove a 85 mile per hour fastball down the middle for all I care, just make the guy beat you. Yes, it was a bad call, but don't give the ump the chance to blow it. Make it happen.

This public service announcement brought to you by a fan of the Milwaukee Brewers. I really hope I don't have to use the "ranting" tag again any time soon, as I've had to go to it the last two days.

Hey, look, a post!

Yes, I do that occasionally. This one will even have some content!

I love me my football. I love me my CFL, too. Don't ask why. It's just the way I am.

I'm just going to spend a second bitching about the Bombers, and why they don't sign a kicker that, I dunno, doesn't miss three extra points, causing his team to lose to highly rated LSU by a point in Louisiana. Yes, I know he's gotten better since then. Still, I'll never be able to shake the fact that he once was so shaken, he ended up doing that.

Tonight, he missed a 48 yarder in one of the toughest stadiums in the CFL, and the Bombers lost by two. Not an easy kick to make, by any means. And yet, I had no faith whatsoever that he'd make it. None. He's also taking up an import slot, which in the CFL, means that he's non-Canadian. Imports are a little over half the roster. Filling the spot with a Canadian gives the Bombers more flexibility on signing another American, for any position anywhere.

Eh, who am I kidding? They'll stick it out with him until it becomes well too late to matter.

Talkin' Baseball....

I'm eating, sleeping, and living baseball since, gosh, probably mid-May. If it's baseball related, I'm involved. If it means watching the Brewers, I'm there. If it means playing MLB 09: The Show, I'm there. If it means running an internet baseball league, I'm there. If it means cruising the net all day for historical baseball articles, I'm there.

In short, baseballbaseballbaseballbaseballbaseball. Ben would not approve.

Oh, and hello Hyderabad, India! I see someone over there has peeked at my blog, whether by accident, or looking for something interesting. Sorry about the lack of interesting things. Also, hi to Battle Creek, Michigan, and New Berlin, Wisconsin.

Phew...

It's been busy here lately. That screwy work schedule I'll only have to mess with for a few more weeks takes a toll on my mental well-being, but thankfully, it's over in July.

The USFL is now on hiatus, but will be back when the software is done and ready.

Check out the Blitz, though, because there's a new baseball league started by me to pass the time until we get the USFL back up and running. Steph's joining the baseball league, which I hope to give a launch to Friday.

I had fun putting together the USFL Championship game writeup, complete with some commentary and commercials! http://blindsideblitz.com/forums/showthread.php?t=38399

More Melvin when I feel like it.

The Doug Melvin Years: 2005

2005 would be better, and there was even hope for a winning season. The hopes would be dashed on the final day of the season, but still, 81-81 was to be celebrated given the sorry state of the organization just a few years before.

Melvin's penchant for free talent led him to the Atlantic League, where he plucked Mike Rivera off the Atlantic City roster. Rivera has been hitting as of late, and now catches for the team every five days.

The June Draft would bring both Ryan Braun and Mat Gamel. Braun is obviously an all-star left fielder, and Gamel is in a semi-platoon at third with Bill Hall. Good times all around here.

Junior Spivey would be traded for Tomo Ohka, and Ohka would start for two years, while Spivey wouldn't play after 2005.

It would be a quiet trade deadline again, and the first major move after the season was trading Lyle Overbay, who had no more useful purpose in Milwaukee with Prince Fielder on the horizon, as well as Ty Taubenheim for Dave Bush, who's done league average starting work for the Brewers, Gabe Gross, who was decent as a backup outfielder for a few years, and Zach Jackson, who didn't work out in the end.

The Brewers also added Corey Koskie for a minor league pitcher in Brian Wolfe, but Koskie would be laid low with injuries after delivering decent numbers over the first half of 2006.

2006 lay ahead with high expectations after the additions of Koskie and Bush, as well as Prince Fielder starting at first base every day.

The Doug Melvin Years: 2004

2004 wasn't to be the Brewers' year either. They actually dropped a half a game, falling to 67-94 for the season. On the other hand, the team kept adding assets and re-building a crumbling foundation.

The June draft proved bountiful again, as Yovani Gallardo, the team's ace, and Angel Salome, the team's best catching prospect, were both picked up.

During the season, it was a fairly quiet time, as the team didn't do much for building. Russell Branyan was added to be a bat and bring people into the park, but he was nothing more than a stopgap. The team did add Derrick Turnbow after the season on waivers, but most of the changes were addition by subtraction. The team also lost Craig Counsell for a season, as Counsell opted to go back to Arizona for two seasons.

Damian Miller was picked up, and would catch for the team for three seasons. Two trades came up over three days, though, which would shape the course of the next few seasons. Well, at least one of them would.

Dan Kolb was shipped off for pitching prospect Jose Cappelan. Kolb's effectiveness was coming to an end, and while the Brewers didn't get a bounty for him, they had the chance, as Cappelan was a hard throwing righty. It didn't pan out, but it didn't hurt the team either.

However, the team shipped off Scott Podsednik, their center fielder, and relief pitcher Jose Vizcaino in exchange for Carlos Lee. Lee would be a slugger for two seasons, but wanted too much to stick around in the end. Still, it was a good attempt at finding a building block. Podsednik would never reach the heights he did in Milwaukee, although he'd hit a homer in the 2005 World Series. Yes, he was named to the All-Star team that year, too, but his OBP was better than his slugging percentage, and he got caught stealing 23 times. It went downhill from there.

Rick Helling, Ricky Botallico, and Jeff Cirillo would be their freely available talent over the offseason, Helling and Botallico wouldn't amount to much, but Cirillo would return to Milwaukee to become a bat off the bench and their jack of all infield trades, pretty much Craig Counsell's role.

Step by step, the team would start to gel into something very much different than what it had been. It would still take some time, though.

The Doug Melvin Years: 2003

Rock Bottom. 56-106. Still a half game better than the Tigers that year, but yuck. The Milwaukee Brewers did do one thing right that year, though. They picked Doug Melvin up off the scrap heap after the Texas Rangers sent him away. Melvin had gotten the Rangers to the postseason 3 times from 1994-2001, but apparently that wasn't enough. Two losing seasons, and Tom Hicks was thinking of bigger things. Didn't quite work out for them, since they've had only one winning season since, but points for the effort.

Top of the mountain? The Brewers made the playoffs in 2008, one of the best seasons in team history, ending a 25 year drought. From bottom to the top (or maybe the top comes this year? Next year?), Melvin's been the big mover behind it all.

Wikipedia says Melvin was hired in October 2002, so I'll start in November 2002, just to be safe. Just the important stuff, because a lot of the little line-items didn't make any impact whatsoever. This is the first in a series, and will cover 2003.

Melvin has a talent for finding gems among the freely-available talent around the league. To start, he picked up Brady Clark for the waiver price in January of 2003. Clark played 4 years in the Milwaukee outfield, giving the team a cheap solution at a time when the team didn't have a lot of money to invest in talent.

In April, he picked up Dan Kolb off the scrap heap from Texas. Kolb was a Melvin draft pick in 1995, and got another chance to be a big league pitcher from him. He'd pick up the closer's job in 2003, and keep it through 2004, when the Brewers sold high on him, and Kolb would end up back as a Brewer in 2006, but would be on his way out of the bigs by the end of 2007.

Dave Burba falls under the same umbrella, although he wouldn't give as much performance or any return, besides taking up a roster spot and making the team look major league. Still, that has its advantages in luring people to come and stay.

The June draft of 2003 was a bountiful one, as the Brewers picked up Rickie Weeks, Tony Gwynn Jr. Mitch Stetter, and Ty Taubenheim. The first three contributed in the majors in some way, and Taubenheim was trade bait for a later deal of Melvin's which has worked out pretty well.

Cutting links to a terrible past helps too. Jeffrey Hammonds got shipped out on June 4th, a bust if there ever was one. His 3 year, 21 million dollar deal was just what the Brewers didn't need to be doing at the time.

Alcides Escobar was picked up a few days later, and he's one of the Brewers' best prospects.

Doug Davis was let loose by not one but two teams in 2003, but became a Brewers asset, one that came in very handy during trading time. He also gave the Brewers three and a half years of nearly .500 pitching.

On December 1st, Melvin made what may still be his masterpiece deal. Richie Sexson was sent to Arizona for Chris Capuano, Craig Counsell, Chad Moeller, Lyle Overbay, Jorge de la Rosa, and Junior Spivey. Sexson played all of 23 games for Arizona before injuries started taking a toll on his career. On the other hand, Capuano gave the Brewers a few years of quality starting pitching, plus the potential for more to come if he ever recovers from injury, Counsell has been a steadying influence on the Brewers' clubhouse and an important jack-of-all-trades, Moeller, well, he did hit for the cycle, does that count? Overbay gave the Brewers two years of quality first base work, and then became a key cog in a trade when the Brewers had some guy named Prince ready to go, and de la Rosa and Spivey didn't exactly pan out the way we had hoped. We did get Tomo Okha and Tony Graffanino from the latter two later on, though.

The Brewers got 4 years of relief work from Matt Wise, a freely available talent who hadn't pitched in the bigs in 2003. The Brewers also got Carlos Villanueva, a quality reliever for us at this point, for Leo Estrella and Wayne Franklin, both of whom never did anything outside of 2003 in Milwaukee.

2003 had been a bounceback year, although the bounce didn't get the team to 70 wins. 2004 promised to be more of the same, but the rain seemed to be slowing down a bit, and the day just got a little bit brighter for those who had some patience.

Mmm.... Bobbleheads!

Gonna go get me a Trevor Hoffman one at the Brewers game today!

I be employed!

I'm going to be working with claims for Allstate. In an effort not to make it completely obvious who I am, or to say anything that may antagonize them for any reason, I'm just going to leave it at that.